BX 9225 
.M4M6 

1899a 



ANDREW 
MELVILLE 



FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES 



The following Volumes are now ready 

THOMAS CARLYLE. By Hector C. Macpherson. 
ALLAN RAMSAY. By Oliphant Smeaton. 
HUGH MILLER. By W. Keith Leask. 
JOHN KNOX. By A. Taylor Innes. 
ROBERT BURNS. By Gabriel Setoun. 
THE BALLAD ISTS. By John Geddie. 
RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor Herkless. 
SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. By Eve Blantyre Simpson. 
THOMAS CHALMERS. By Professor W. Garden Blaikie. 
JAMES BOSWELL. By W. Keith Leask. 
TOBIAS SMOLLETT. By Oliphant Smeaton. 
FLETCHER OF SALTOUN. By G. W. T. Omond. 
THE BLACKWOOD GROUP. By Sir George Douglas. 
NORMAN MACLEOD. By John Wellwood. 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. By Professor Saintsbury. 
KIRKCALDY OF GRANGE. By Louis A. BarbS. 
ROBERT FERGUSSON. By A. B. Grosart. 
JAMES THOMSON. By William Bayne. 
MUNGO PARK. By T. Banks Maclachlan. 
DAVID HUME. By Professor Calderwood. 
WILLIAM DUNBAR. By Oliphant Smeaton. 
SIR WILLIAM WALLACE. By Professor Murison. 
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. By Margaret Moyes 
Black. 

THOMAS REID. By Professor Campbell Fraser. 
POLLOK and AYTOUN. By Rosaline Masson. 
ADAM SMITH. By Hector C. Macpherson. 
ANDREW MELVILLE. By William Morison. 



ANDREW 
MELVILLE 

BY 

WILLIAM 
MORISON 




FAMOUS 

scots: 

SERIES 



PUBLISHED BY : 
CHARLES •X£2X 
SCRIBNER'S SONS 
XSi^T NEW YORK 



8 y Transfer 

0. C Public Library 

FEB 7 704] 



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JUN 10 M2 



r 




PREFATORY NOTE 



Let it be understood that the quotations in 
Scots, where the author is not mentioned, 
are from the Autobiography and Diary of 
James Melville. 

March 1899. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

PAGB 

Introductory 9 

CHAPTER II 

Birth — Education — Years Abroad . . « 15 

CHAPTER III 

Services to Scottish Education — Principalship of 

Glasgow and St. Andrews 23 

CHAPTER IV 

The * Dinging Down ' of the Bishops — Melville 
and Morton 31 

CHAPTER V 

The 6 Bigging Up' of the Bishops under Lennox 

and Arran — Melville's Flight to England . 43 

CHAPTER VI 

The King's Surrender to the Church ... 56 



8 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER VII 

PAGE 

The Popish Lords — Melville and the King at 

Falkland Palace . . . • . 71 

CHAPTER VIII 
The King's Greek Gift to the Church ... 93 

CHAPTER IX 
Melville at Hampton Court . , , .116 

CHAPTER X 

The King's Assemblies 134 

CHAPTER XI 
The Tower : Sedan 140 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTORY 

While Andrew Melville has other claims on the lasting 
honour of his countrymen than the part he took in 
securing for Scotland the ecclesiastical system which 
has been the most powerful factor in her history, it may 
be held as certain that where this service which filled 
his life is disesteemed, his biography, if read at all, will 
be read with only a languid interest. It will be our 
first endeavour, therefore, to show that such a prejudice 
in regard to our subject is mistaken and misleading. 

Melville, and all from first to last who joined in the 
Scottish resistance to Episcopacy, were persuaded that 
the controversy in which they were engaged was one 
not academic merely but vital, and that, as it was 
settled one way or the other, so would the people be 
left in a position in which they would be able to 
develop their religious life with freedom and effect, or 
in one which would incalculably cripple it. That is a 
contention which history has amply vindicated. 

The best justification of the struggle carried on 

9 



ID 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



during the period from Melville to the Revolution 
(1574-1688) to preserve the Presbyterian system in the 
Church is to be found in the benefits which that system 
has conferred upon the country. It has penetrated the 
whole Christian people with a sense of their individual 
responsibility in connection with the principles and 
government of the Church ; it has saved the Church 
from being dwarfed into a mere clerical corporation ; 
it has laid for it a broad and strong basis by winning 
to it the attachment of its common members, and by 
exercising their intelligence, sympathy, and interest in 
regard to all its institutions and enterprises. It may 
be truly said of the Scottish people that their highest 
patriotism has been elicited and exercised over the 
religious problems of the nation ; that they have shown 
more sensitiveness concerning their religious rights, 
liberties, and duties than concerning any other interest 
of their life; and that they have been more readily 
and deeply touched when the honour and efficiency 
of their Church was at stake than by any other 
cause whatever. How should an ecclesiastical system 
better vindicate its claim? Nothing so ennobles a 
people as the care of matters of high concern— such 
a care as Presbyterianism has laid on the Scottish 
people. 

But it was not only the conviction of the excellence 
of their own economy that led the Presbyterians to 
maintain it at all hazards — it was also their fear of 
many tendencies in the rival system. They dreaded 
that the imposition of Episcopacy would ultimately 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



ii 



undo the work of the Reformation, and bring the nation 
once more under the yoke of Rome. Here, too, history 
has justified them. Had it not been for the conjunc- 
tion of the forces of the Scottish Presbyterians and the 
English Puritans during the reign of Charles the First, 
the designs of that monarch against the Protestantism of 
both kingdoms could not probably have been checked. 
The least that can be said with truth on this matter 
is, that the Protestantism of the country was gravely 
imperilled in his reign and in the reigns of his two 
immediate successors, and that the resolute attitude of 
Scotland counted more than any other one influence in 
preserving it. 

Nor was it only the preservation of the freedom of the 
Church that was involved in the struggle. The cause 
of civil freedom was also at stake. 'True religion,' 
says a classic of the Scottish Church, 4 and national 
liberty are like Hippocrates' twins — they weep or laugh, 
they live or die together. There is a great sibness 
between the Church and the Commonwealth. They 
depend one upon the other, and either is advanced by 
the prosperity and success of the other.' Where a 
people make a stand for spiritual liberty, they always 
by necessity advance civil freedom. Prelacy was 
bound up with the absolutism of the throne in the 
State as well as in the Church ; Presbytery with the 
cause of free government and the sovereignty of the 
popular will, as declared in their laws by the chosen 
representatives of the nation. 

But that is not the whole case for the Presbyterians. 



12 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



The opposing system was discredited in their mind by 
the policy by which it was promoted. It was a policy 
of coercion, of bribery, of dissimulation and artifice, 
of resort to every kind of influence that is intolerable 
to a free and high-spirited people. It was a policy 
that harassed the most faithful and honourable men in 
the Church, and preferred the most unscrupulous and 
obsequious to places of power. There was not one 
of those concerned in it, from the king downwards, 
who came out of the business with undamaged char- 
acter. How could the Scottish Church but resist a 
system which it was sought to thrust upon it by such 
methods as these ? If Melville's claims on our inter- 
est rested on no other ground than the services he 
rendered to the Church and to the nation in maintain- 
ing Presbyterianism in the land, that alone would make 
them good. 

But Melville was not only the greatest ecclesiastical 
controversialist of his day ; his name is pre-eminent in 
another sphere. He was the most learned Scot of his 
time ; and our Universities never had a teacher within 
their walls who did so much to spread their reputation. 
His fame as a scholar not only checked the habit 
among the elite of Scottish students of resorting to the 
Continental Universities ; it drew many foreign students 
to Glasgow and St. Andrews. His academic distinction 
has been overshadowed by his fame as the leader of 
the Church in one of the most momentous struggles in 
her history, but it was equally great in its own sphere. 
A Scottish historian — John Hill Burton — has sought, 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



i3 



with a singular perversity, to belittle Melville as a 
scholar, and speaks of M'Crie as having endeavoured 
to make out his title to distinction in this respect from 
the natural ambition to claim such an honour for one 
of his own ecclesiastical forebears. The chapter which 
follows will show the value of such a judgment. 

There is still another and a higher ground for our 
interest in Melville, namely, his massive personality. 
It is not so much in the polemic or in the scholar we 
are interested, as in the man. The appreciation of 
his character by his countrymen has suffered from 
his proximity to Knox. Had he not stood so close 
on the field of history to the greatest of Scots, his 
stature would have been more impressive. In historic 
picturesqueness his life will not compare with that of 
Knox, although it had incidents, such as his appear- 
ances before the King and Council at Falkland and 
Hampton Court, which are unsurpassed by any in 
Scottish history for moral grandeur. There were not 
the same tragic elements mixed up with Melville's 
career. His life fell on duller times and among 
feebler contemporaries. He had not such a foil to his 
figure as Knox had in Mary ■ there was not among his 
opponents such a protagonist as Knox encountered in 
Mary's strong personality. And yet it may be justly 
claimed for Melville that in the highest quality of man- 
hood, in moral nerve, he was not a whit behind his 
great predecessor. He never once w r avered in his 
course nor abated his testimony to his principles in 
the most perilous situation ; in the long struggle with 



14 FAMOUS SCOTS 

the King and the Court he played the man, uttered 
fearlessly on every occasion the last syllable of his 
convictions, made no accommodation or concession to 
arbitrary authority, and kept an untamed and hopeful 
spirit on to the very end. The work a man may do 
belongs to his own generation ; the spirit in which he 
does it, his faith, his fortitude, to all generations. 
Melville conferred many signal and enduring benefits 
on his country : the one which transcended all others 
was the inspiration he left to her in his own rare 
nobility of character. 



CHAPTER II 



BIRTH — EDUCATION — YEARS ABROAD 

1 Fashioned to much honour from his cradle.' 

Henry VIIL 

Melville's birthplace was Baldovy, an estate in the 
immediate neighbourhood of Montrose, of which his 
father was laird. He was born on ist August 1545 — 
a year memorable as that of Knox's emergence to 
public life — the youngest of nine sons, most of whom 
came to fill honourable positions in the Church and 
commonwealth. 

Montrose and the district around it early showed 
sympathy with the Reformed Faith. George Wishart 
was a native of Angus, and his influence was nowhere 
greater than there. The family seat of John Erskine 
— Dun House — was in the same vicinity, and he too 
by his warm espousal of Protestantism strengthened 
its hold on the district. The Baldovy family itself 
had been identified with the Reformed movement from 
the beginning. Melville's eldest brother, Richard, 
who became minister of Maryton, was travelling tutor 
to Erskine, and the two studied together at Witten- 
berg under Melanchthon. The Melvilles were in- 

15 



i6 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



timate with Wishart; and Baldovy and Dun House 
were the resorts of other leading spirits among the 
Reformers. In 1556 Knox was Erskine's guest when 
he was preaching in the district, and his personal 
influence intensified the attachment of the Melvilles 
to the cause to which they were already committed. 

Melville was only two years old when his father was 
killed fighting among the Angus men on the field of 
Pinkie, a battle which made many orphans; and in 
his twelfth year he lost his mother, when he was taken 
by his eldest brother to Maryton Manse, and as 
tenderly cared for by the minister and his wife as 
though he had been a child of their own. One of the 
sons of the manse was James Melville, between whom 
and his 'Uncle Andro* the most endeared affection 
sprang up. The two lived in each other's lives and 
shared each other's work, alike as teachers in the two 
principal Universities, and as leaders in the Council 
of the Church. Corque unutn in duplici corfiore et una 
anima — so the elder, after the younger's death, de- 
scribed their relationship. 

Melville's scholarly bent showed itself early. 'He 
was a sicklie, tender boy, and tuk pleasure in nathing 
sa meikle as his buik.' He began his education in 
the Grammar School of Montrose, which had great 
repute, and on leaving it he attended for two years 
the school in the same town, founded by Erskine of 
Dun, for the teaching of Greek. It was in the latter 
school that he learned the rudiments of Greek, in 
which he had afterwards few equals anywhere, and 



ANDREW MELVILLE 17 



none in Scotland. In 1559 Melville entered the 
University of St. Andrews and joined St. Mary's 
College. Aristotle's Works were the only text-books 
used ; and Melville was the only one in the University, 
whether student or professor, who could read them in 
the original. He was a favourite of the Provost of his 
College, John Douglas, who invited him often to his 
house and encouraged him in his studies, and dis- 
cerned in him the promise of distinction as a scholar. 
6 He wad tak the boy betwix his legges at the fire in 
winter, and blessing him say — "My sillie fatherless 
and motherless chyld, it 7 s ill to wit what God may mak 
of thee yet ! " 3 Melville finished his curriculum at St. 
Andrews in 1564, and left with the reputation of being 
' the best philosopher, poet, and Grecian of any young 
maister in the land.' 

It was common at that time for Scottish students on 
leaving their own Universities to seek, at the Con- 
tinental seats of learning, a more abundant education 
than their own country could afford. We shall see 
that when Melville came to be at the head in succes- 
sion of our two principal Universities, he considerably 
modified this custom. He conformed to it, however, in 
his own case, and the same year in which he closed 
his course at St. Andrews left Scotland to prosecute 
his studies abroad. The next decade was his Wander- 
jahre. He went first of all to Paris, whose University 
was the most renowned in Europe. There was a truce 
at the time between the Catholics and the Reformers 
in France ; a large measure of toleration was allowed 

B 



x8 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



by the Government, and the principal Professors were 
Protestants. In Paris, Melville sat at the feet of some 
of the most distinguished scholars of the day : he read 
diligently in Greek literature ; acquired a knowledge of 
Hebrew; and at the same time studied Philosophy 
under Petrus Ramus, the great opponent of Aris- 
totelianism, becoming a follower of this daring 
innovator, whose system he afterwards introduced in 
the Scottish Universities. 

From Paris Melville went to Poitiers, where he 
studied jurisprudence and was also employed as tutor 
in the college of St. Marceon. In the ' Diary 1 of his 
nephew, who was a great literary impressionist, and 
whose pages preserve for us the very c form and 
pressure' of the scenes he describes, many incidents 
are related of his Continental life which disclose 
his character as a youth. During the third year of 
Melville's residence in Poitiers the academic quiet 
of the town was broken by the clash of arms. Civil 
war had broken out afresh in France, and Poitiers, 
which was a Catholic town, held by the Duke of Guise, 
was invested by a Protestant army under Coligny. 
Melville, as a foreigner and a Protestant, found himself 
in a situation where he needed to use the greatest 
caution to escape the danger to which he was exposed. 
When the siege began the colleges were closed, and he 
was received into the family of a prominent citizen as 
tutor to his boy. There was a small party of the 
soldiery quartered in the house, and one day their 
corporal, who had observed Melville at his devotions, 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



19 



challenged him as a Huguenot, and threatened to deal 
with him by martial law as one who might betray the 
town. With a courage and an adroitness which were 
native to him, he at once turned round on his assailant 
and repudiated his imputations; and seizing on some 
armour that was lying by, donned it, and going to the 
stables took the best horse by the head, as if to join 
there and then the ranks of the army of defence, when 
the corporal, fairly nonplussed by the apparent vehe- 
mence of his loyalty, begged his forgiveness. He had 
no more trouble of this kind, but he never felt secure 
of his liberty, and it was a comfort to him to know 
that he had a good horse standing in the stable by 
which, if it should come to the worst, he could make 
his escape to Coligny's camp. During the siege his 
pupil, a bright boy, to whom he had become deeply 
attached, was killed by a cannon-ball which penetrated 
the wall of his room and struck him on the thigh. 
Melville was in the house at the time, and on entering 
the room the dying boy embraced him and passed away 
with the words of the Apostle on his lips — SiSdo-mX^ 
tov Spofiov fxov T€TeA.€fca — ' Master, I have finished my 
course. 7 £ That bern gaed never out of his hart.' 

On the siege being raised, Melville left Poitiers for 
Geneva, footing it all the way in the company of a few 
fellow-students. If he was sickly as a child, he 
gathered vigour in his 'teens and grew up a manly 
youth. He was of short stature and great agility, high- 
spirited, brave, the cheeriest of companions, full of 
resource in emergencies, and with an artful humour 



20 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



by which he made his escape from many a difficult 
situation incident to Continental travel at the time. 
On the journeys from town to town on the way to 
Geneva he held out better than any of his comrades, 
stepping along with no impedimenta but his Hebrew 
Bible which he had slung at his side— the same Bible 
which he afterwards 4 clanked ' down on the board 
before the King and Council in Edinburgh, — the 
freshest of the company when the day's journey was 
ended, so that he 'wad out and sight ' the towns and 
villages whithersoever they came while the others lay 
down 'lyk tired tykes.' On reaching Geneva he and 
one of his fellow-travellers, who was a Frenchman, 
presented themselves at the gates together, when they 
were challenged by the guard. ' The ports of Genev 
wer tentilie keipit, because of the troubles of France 
and multitud of strangers that cam. Being thairfor 
inquyrit what they war, the Franche man his 
companion answerit, "We ar puir scollars." But Mr. 
Andro, perceaving that they haid na will of puir folks, 
being alreadie owerlaid thairwith, said, "No, no, we 
ar nocht puir! [though he admitted afterwards that 
they had 'but a crown to the fore' between them]. 
We haiff alsmikle as will pey for all we tak, sa lang as 
we tarie. We haiff letters from his acquentance to 
Monsieur di Beza; let us deliver those, we crave na 
fordar."' 

In Geneva Melville received a warm welcome from 
Beza, who reigned there in place of Calvin, and through 
his influence he at once obtained an appointment to 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



21 



the chair of Humanity in the College. During his 
residence in that city, which lasted for five years, he had 
the opportunity of mingling with many of the first 
scholars of the age, and of the leaders of the Reformed 
movement in Europe. After the massacre of St. 
Bartholomew in 1572, Geneva was filled with Protes- 
tant refugees from every Continental country. Never 
probably before or since has there been found 
within one city such an assemblage of masters of 
intellect and learning, or such a cloud of distinguished 
witnesses for truth and liberty. In Geneva, Melville, 
like Knox, received much of his invigoration for the 
work that awaited him on his return to his native 
land. 

His residence there was made still more agreeable 
by the hospitality of a relative, Henry Scrymgeour, 
brother of his foster-mother. Scrymgeour had left 
Scotland in early life to study law on the Continent, 
and after acting as tutor and secretary to several noble 
families in France and Italy, he had come to Geneva, 
and been appointed to the chair of Civil Law in the 
College. He had 'atteined to grait ritches, conquesit 
a prettie room within a lig to Geneva, and biggit 
thairon a trim house called " The Vilet." ' In 6 the viler,' 
where Scrymgeour and his wife and daughter com- 
posed the household, Melville was always a welcome 
guest. 

During Melville's ten years' absence on the Continent 
he had little correspondence with his friends at home, 
and towards the end, as they had heard nothing of him 



22 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



since he had left Poitiers, they began to fear that he 
had perished like so many others in the civil wars in 
France. A countryman, however, who had come to 
Geneva to see Henry Scrymgeour in order to invite 
him in the name of well-known friends of learning in 
Scotland to become a teacher in one of the Universities, 
brought back news of Melville's welfare and reputation, 
when his relations immediately wrote and urged him 
to return to his own country, and bestow his services as 
a scholar in raising the low-fallen repute of Scottish 
education. With great regret, and bearing with him a 
letter of commendation from Beza, in which this distin- 
guished friend used these words — ' the graittest token 
of affection the Kirk of Genev could schaw to Scotland 
is that they had suffered thamselves to be spuiled of 
Mr. Andro Melville, wherby the Kirk of Scotland 
might be inritched ' — he left the city where, like Knox 
before him, he spent his happiest days. He arrived in 
Edinburgh in the beginning of July 1574. 



CHAPTER III 



SERVICES TO SCOTTISH EDUCATION — PRINCIPALSHIP OF 
GLASGOW AND ST. ANDREWS 

' He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one ; 

. . . Ever witness for him 
Those twins of learning that he raised in you.' 

Henry VIII. 

It was in the interests of education, and for the purpose 
of reviving Scottish learning, that Melville had been 
induced to come back to his native land, and it will be 
convenient to devote a chapter to this subject before 
we consider the graver, more crucial interests in which 
he was destined to take a decisive part. He had not 
been many days in the country when Regent Morton 
offered him an appointment as Court Chaplain, with 
the ulterior view of attaching him to his patron's ecclesi- 
astical policy. Whether having this suspicion or no, 
Melville declined the post. He had returned to Scot- 
land for educational work, and he determined to wait 
for an opening in one of the Universities. Meanwhile 
he wished a little repose with the friends from whom 
he had been so long separated; and he went to 
Baldovy, where he was received with much affection. 
It was at this time that the attachment between him 
and his nephew was formed and consecrated by a 

23 



24 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



kind of sacramental act on the part of the father of 
the latter — * I was resigned ower be my father hailelie 
into him to veak 1 upon him as his sone and servant, 
and, as my father said to him, to be a pladge of his love. 
And surlie his service was easie, nocht to me onlie, bot 
even to the fremdest man that ever served him.' 

So great was Melville's scholarly reputation by this 
time that, at the General Assembly held a month after 
his return, the Universities of Glasgow and St. Andrews 
put in competing claims for his services as Principal. 
He decided in favour of Glasgow, on account of its 
greater need; and at the end of October he left 
Baldovy, accompanied by his nephew, to enter on his 
academic office. On the way two days were spent in 
Stirling, where the King, then a boy of nine, was re- 
siding; and the Melvilles saw him and were much 
struck with his precocity in learning: 'He was the 
sweitest sight in Europe that day for strange and ex- 
traordinar gifts of ingyne, judgment, memorie, and 
langage. I hard him discours, walking upe and doun 
in the auld Lady Marr's hand, of knawlage and ignor- 
ance, to my grait marvell and estonishment. , James 
never lost his fancy for discoursing at large and 
learnedly to the 'marvell and estonishment ' of his 
hearers. But it was to visit the King's illustrious 
preceptor, George Buchanan, that Melville came by 
Stirling. The two were kindred spirits; they were 
like in their love of learning, in their scholarly ac- 
complishments, in their passion for teaching, in their 
i Wait. 



ANDREW MELVILLE 25 

political and religious sympathies, in the ardour and 
vigour with which they maintained their convictions, 
in their valorous action for the defence of civil and 
religious freedom. At this time Buchanan was be- 
ginning the work which rilled his closing years — his 
History of Scotla?id. Seven years afterwards the 
Melvilles paid him another visit, in Edinburgh, the 
account of which by the younger is one of the loci 
classici of Scottish history. It contains, like the same 
writer's description of the last appearance of Knox in 
the pulpit, one of the most living pieces of portraiture 
in our literature : 1 When we cam to his chalmer, we 
fand him sitting in his chaire, teatching his young man 
that servit him in his chalmer a, b, ab ; e, b, eb, etc. 
Efter salutation, Mr. Andro sayes, " I sie, sir, yie are 
nocht ydle." " Better this," quoth he, "nor stelling 
sheipe, or sitting ydle, quhilk is als ill ! " 1 Buchanan 
put the proof of his Epistolary Dedication to the King 
into the hands of Melville, who read it and suggested 
some amendments. * I may do no mair,' said the worn- 
out veteran, 'for thinking on another mater.' When 
Melville asked what he meant, he replied, 4 To die/ 
Leaving him for a little, the Melvilles accompanied his 
nephew, Thomas Buchanan, on a visit to his printer, 
whom they found setting up the passage of the History 
relating the f burial of Davie.' 1 Its boldness alarmed 
them, and they asked the printer to stop the passage 
meanwhile. Returning to the house, they found him 
in bed, and, asking how he did, he replied, 1 Even 

1 Rizzio. 



26 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



going the way of weil-fare.' His nephew then men- 
tioned their fear that the passage referred to would so 
offend the King that the work would be suppressed. 
' Tell me, man,' Buchanan answered, 4 giff I have tauld 
the treuthe?' 4 Yes/ replied his nephew; 'sir, I think 
sa.' 1 1 will byd his fead 1 and all his kin's, then ! ' 

Melville needed a stout heart for the task that lay 
before him in Glasgow. The University, which had 
never been prosperous, being always starved in its 
revenues and undermanned, had declined so far that its 
gates had to be closed for lack of students ; so that when 
he entered on the Principalship he actually constituted 
the whole Senatus in his own person. He began by 
training a number of young men as regents, the course 
of study embracing classics, mathematics, and mental 
and moral philosophy, in each of which he carried his 
class as far as the highest standards of any University in 
Europe ; and in addition to these labours he taught all 
the theological classes. When the regents were qualified 
he specialised their subjects — a great reform on the old 
system, under which the students passed through the 
entire curriculum under the same teacher. 

Melville's teaching was not confined to his class- 
hours nor to his professor's desk ; he sat with the 
students at the college table, and in his table-talk gave 
them some of his best instruction. The fame of the 
University rose so rapidly under his regime that the 
class-rooms were soon crowded: 'I dare say there 
was na place in Europe comparable to Glasgow for 
i Feud. 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



27 



guid letters during these yeirs, for a plentifull and guid 
chepe mercat for all kynd of langages, artes an sciences.' 

In 1580 Melville was translated to the Principalship 
of St. Mary's College, St. Andrews. Mainly through 
his own exertions a new constitution for the University 
had just been framed and sanctioned by Parliament, in 
accordance with which that College was to be hence- 
forth set apart for theological education. The reforms 
made at this time in St. Andrews went on the same 
lines as those effected in Glasgow. 

Before Melville's time the study of Greek never went 
beyond the rudiments : Hebrew and other Oriental 
languages were not taught at all; and in philosophy 
Aristotle held exclusive possession of the ground. His 
reforms applied particularly to these branches of learn- 
ing : Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac were taught according 
to the best methods of the age ; and the Platonic Philo- 
sophy was introduced. M'Crie, who always speaks with 
authority on such a subject, describes the reformed 
curriculum as the most liberal and enlightened plan of 
study in any University, whether at home or abroad. 

Melville continued in the Principalship of St. Mary's 
for upwards of a quarter of a century — from the close 
of 1580 to 1606, when he was summoned by the King 
to London, never to return to his native land. 

In St. Andrews and Glasgow he had not only teach- 
ing duties, he presided over the government of the 
University as well; and the same resolute respect for 
law, which set him so stoutly against the King's 
tyranny in the realm, made him a determined upholder 



28 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



of order in the University. He was at once a fearless 
subject and a born ruler of men. When he entered 
on his office in St. Andrews, some of the professors, 
chafed by the reforms which he introduced, became 
insubordinate, but soon succumbed to his authority; 
and more than once in Glasgow he quelled riots 
among the students at the risk of his life. On one 
occasion, when his friends urged him to condone an 
offence of a student of noble family from fear of 
revenge, he answered, ' Giff they wald haiff forgifTness 
let them crave it humblie and they sail haiff it; but 
or that preparative pass, that we dar nocht correct our 
scholars for fear of bangstars and clanned gentlemen, 
they sail haiff all the blud of my body first.' 

In St. Andrews he was for some time Rector of the 
University as well as Principal of St. Mary's, and in his 
exercise of civil authority in that capacity he did more 
for public order than all the magistrates of the burgh. 
At one time the inhabitants were greatly plagued by a 
bad neighbour, the Laird of Dairsie, who had once 
been Provost, and who resented his ejection from that 
office. On more than one occasion associates of his, 
Balfour of Burley and others, had entered the city 
during the night and committed gross outrages. One 
day the report reached St. Andrews that Dairsie and his 
friends were approaching in force to make an assault 
on the citizens. The magistrates were panic-stricken ; 
but on the report reaching the Rector's ears, he im- 
mediately summoned the whole University together 
and organised a party of resistance, placed himself at 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



29 



its head, bearing in his hand a white spear (one of the 
insignia of his office), and by his prompt action made 
the invaders glad to decamp. 

During Melville's rectorship quarrels sometimes 
occurred between town and gown, and in these he 
always showed himself jealous in regard to the rights 
of the University. He had once a serious rupture 
with the magistrates, on account of their unjust ad- 
ministration and their rejection of eminent ministers 
whom he had commended for charges in the city. 
Preaching in his own pulpit in the College of St. 
Mary's, he spoke with such vehemence of their mis- 
doings that he raised the town against him. Forthwith 
placards were affixed to the College gates threatening 
the Rector with dire revenge. Nothing daunted, 
Melville continued to fulminate against the authorities 
— 'with ane heroicall spreit, the mair they stirit and 
bostit the mair he strak with that twa-eagit sword, sa 
that a day he movit the" Provest, with sear rubbing of 
the ga of his conscience, to ryse out of his seatt in the 
middes of the sermont, and with some muttering of 
words to goe to the dure, out-throw the middes of the 
peiple.' Melville, instead of giving way to the irate 
magistrate, had him brought before the Presbytery, 
when he expressed his regret for disturbing the 
public worship, and craved forgiveness ; and so peace 
was restored. 

The academic labours of Melville caused a great 
revival in Scottish education. Not only did Scotland 
after this time keep her own students, but foreign 



30 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



students began to attend her Universities. A few years 
after Melville went to St. Andrews, names of students 
from all parts of the Continent began to appear on the 
matriculation registers, chiefly of St. Andrews, but of 
the other Universities as well. He gave an impetus to 
learning not only within academic circles, but through- 
out the country, as was shown in the great increase in 
the production of books in all branches of literature 
and science. The period enriched the nation with no 
names of literary genius, but the general intellectual 
activity of the country made a great advance. Melville 
himself left no permanent contribution to literature — 
his hands were too full of public cares for that ; and his 
entire literary remains consist of sacred poems and 
fugitive pieces of verse in Latin. But he was very 
ready with his pen, and served as a kind of unofficial 
poet-laureate. It is a curious fact that on every occa- 
sion in the King's reign that called for celebration, 
even at those times when Melville was on the worst 
terms with James, an appropriate ode was forthcoming. 
He was a clever satirist, and it was a lampoon which 
he wrote on a sermon in the Royal Chapel at Hampton 
Court that was made the pretext for depriving him of 
his liberty. 

Such were Melville's services to education and learn- 
ing. Through all the stormy controversies into which 
he was plunged he never forsook his first love, but 
continued his work in our Universities up to the. close 
of his career in Scotland. 



CHAPTER IV 



THE 1 DINGING DOWN 1 OF THE- BISHOPS- 
MELVILLE AND MORTON 

1 Who never looks on man 

Fearful and wan, 
But firmly trusts in God.' 

Henry Vaughan. 

We must go back to the year of Melville's return 
home, 1574, in order that we may review the supreme 
labours of his life. It was a time of confusion : Knox 
was dead, and the Church needed a leader to shape 
its discipline and policy in order to conserve the fruits 
of the Reformer's work. Two years before Melville's 
return, viz. in 1572, the electroplate Episcopacy — the 
Tulchan 1 Bishops — had been imposed on the Church 
by the Regent Morton. Up to this time the consti- 
tution of the Church had been purely Presbyterian. 
There was no office superior to that of the minister 
of a congregation. The Superintendents were only 
ministers, or elders appointed provisionally by the 
General Assembly, to whom such presbyterial func- 
tions were delegated as the exigencies of the Church 

1 A Tulchan was a calf s skin stuffed with straw placed near the 
cow to induce her to give milk. 

81 



32 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



required. They had no pretensions to the rank or 
functions of the Anglican bishops ; they had no 
peculiar ordination, and no authority save such as they 
held at the pleasure of the Assembly. 

Side by side, however, with the Presbyterian ministry 
there still existed the old Roman Hierarchy, who had 
been allowed to retain their titles, the greater part 01 
their revenues, and their seats in Parliament. The 
prelates had no place within the Church, their status 
being only civil and legal; and when any of them 
joined the Church they entered it on the same footing 
as the common ministry. 

This was far from being a satisfactory or safe state 
of things. It had elements, indeed, which obviously 
threatened the integrity of the Presbyterian order ; and 
it is little wonder that the Church was impatient of its 
continuance and eager to end it, to clear the Roman 
Hierarchy off the ground, and secure for its own 
economy a chance of developing itself without the 
entanglements that were inevitable to the existing 
compromise. 

The financial arrangements that had been made at 
the first for carrying on the Church's work were unjust 
and inadequate. A portion of the third part of the 
benefices was all that had been assigned for the 
support of the ministry, and even this had not been 
fully or regularly paid, so that in many parishes the 
ministers' stipends had to be provided by their own 
people. In these circumstances the Church very 
naturally wished the ecclesiastical revenues of the 



ANDREW MELVILLE 33 

country to be transferred to her own use, and she 
made the claim accordingly. But for this claim no 
party in the State would have resisted the sweeping 
away of the Hierarchy. The nobles, however, had set 
greedy eyes on the Church's patrimony, and so they 
became the determined opponents of this step. They 
could well have spared the bishops, but they could not 
forego the benefices, and to secure this plunder to the 
nobles was the main object of the Tulchan device. By 
this notable plan the benefices were taken from the 
old Hierarchy and bestowed on the nobles, who then 
conferred the titles without the functions on any of the 
clergy who could be bribed into compliance. 

Morton, who was the chief supporter of the scheme, 
was notoriously avaricious — 1 wounderfully giffen to 
gather gear.' He hoped to enrich himself by it, and 
succeeded in doing so; but he had other motives. 
He wished — and this was always the main Govern- 
mental reason for the preference of Episcopacy — to 
keep the clergy under his control ; and he sought also 
to please Elizabeth, on whom he was dependent for 
the stability of his own position, by bringing the 
Scottish Church into some degree of conformity with 
the Anglican. 

The Assembly, while accepting the compromise 
had done what it could to safeguard its own constitu- 
tion by putting it on record that it had assented to the 
continuance of the bishops only in their civil capacity, 
and in order to give a legal claim on the benefices to 
those who held them, and that it allowed the bishops 

C 



34 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



no superiority within the Church over the ordinary 
ministers, or, at any rate, over the superintendents. 

There is no doubt that it was only the hope, on the 
part of the Church, that she would secure a portion at 
least of her patrimony by it that reconciled her to this 
scheme. The ministers had little heart in the business, 
and the best of them did not conceal their dislike of 
the arrangement and their fear of the evils to which 
it would lead. It is easier to blame the Church for 
what she did than to say what she ought to have 
done. It would have been a more heroic, and prob- 
ably a safer course, to refuse the compromise and at 
once to bring on the struggle with the Government 
which she had to face in the end. If Melville had 
been on the ground at the time, there is little doubt 
that one man at least would have had both the 
wisdom to recommend that course and the courage to 
pursue it. 

The Tulchan system had only been in operation for 
two years when he came back from the Continent ; but 
that was long enough to realise the Church's fears and 
to make her restive. The ministers who accepted the 
bishoprics became troublers of the Church, took 
advantage of their titular superiority over their 
brethren to push for a position of greater authority, 
and were more and more evidently the pliant tools of 
the Court. The Church, moreover, gained nothing in 
the way of a better provision for the ministry — the 
nobles seized the benefices and kept them. 

On encountering the growing dissatisfaction of the 



ANDREW MELVILLE 35 

ministers with his project, the Regent threatened the 
freedom of the Assembly, and put forward a claim on 
behalf of the Crown to supreme authority within the 
Church. There lay the crux of the situation, the great 
central issue in the controversy that was being thrust 
upon the Scottish people, that was to rend the nation 
for many a day, and that is not yet finally settled — Was 
the Church to be free to shape her own course and do 
her work in her own fashion, or was she to be subject 
to the civil government? Was the Church to be 
essentially the Church of Christ in Scotland, or was 
she to be the religious department, so to speak, of the 
Civil Service ? 

The first Assembly in which Melville sat met in 
Edinburgh in March 1575. Parliament had just 
appointed a committee to frame a more satisfactory 
polity for the Church, and the Assembly nominated 
some of its members as assessors to confer with it and 
report the proposals that might be made. At the 
same time it appointed a committee of its own, 
composed of its most competent and trusted men, to 
draft a constitution for its approval. This committee 
was reappointed from year to year; the result of its 
labours being the 'Second Book of Discipline/ which 
was laid before the Assembly and adopted by it at 
its meeting in the Magdalene Chapel, Edinburgh, in 
April 1578. 

It was in the next Assembly, held in August of the 
same year, that the first blow was struck at the Tulchan 
Episcopate. This was done by a resolution brought 



36 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



forward by John Dune, one of the ministers of 
Edinburgh ; but there is little doubt that it originated 
with Melville, who, although he had been home 
scarcely a year, had taken his place as the leader of 
his brethren, and by his teaching and personal influence 
had ' wakened up their spreits ' to oppose the designs 
of the Court against the constitution of the Church. 
Durie's resolution raised the question of the scriptural- 
ness and lawfulness of the office of a bishop. In 
supporting it Melville made a powerful speech, in 
which he urged the abolition of the bishoprics and 
the restoration of the original Presbyterian order of 
the Church as the only satisfactory settlement of her 
affairs. The House resolved there and then to appoint 
an advisory committee to consider and report on the 
question, which committee reported against the office. 
No further step was taken at this time, the bishops 
being left as they were. At the next Assembly, 
however, held in April 1576, the committee's finding 
was adopted, and so far applied that all bishops who 
held their office 'at large' were required to allocate 
themselves to particular congregations. 

The Assembly's decision was practically unanimous; 
its members were at one in wishing an end to the 
Tulchan scheme, and the people were of the same 
mind as the ministers. Against the ministers and 
people stood the Regent, the nobility, and all the 
clergy whose interests were threatened. Morton would 
fain have arrested the Assembly's action, but dared 
not; he could not afford at the time to drive the 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



37 



ministers into opposition, a powerful party of the 
nobles being hostile to his regency, and the com- 
bination would have shattered his government. His 
policy, therefore, was to manage the ministers for the 
accomplishment of his ends, and to attach as many of 
them as possible, and especially as many of the leaders 
as possible, to the Court. From the moment when 
he first met Melville he had the sagacity to perceive that 
this was the strongest man he would have to deal with : 
he accordingly did his utmost to secure Melville's 
support for the Government scheme. He offered him, 
as we have said, a Court Chaplaincy, and he would 
have made him Archbishop of St. Andrews on the 
death of Douglas. When he found him incorruptible 
by his favours, he tried to intimidate him. Calling him 
one day into his presence, he broke out in violent 
denunciation of those ministers who were disturbing 
the peace of the realm by their 'owersie' 1 dreams and 
setting up of the Genevan discipline ; and on Melville 
turning the attack against himself and his government 
Morton flew into a rage — 'Ther will never be quyetnes 
in this countrey till halrT a dissone of yow be hangit 
or banished the countrey!' 'Tushe! sir/ retorted 
Melville, 'threaten your courtiers in that fashion. It 
is the same to me whether I rot in the air or in the 
ground. The earth is the Lord's : my fatherland is 
wherever well-doing is. I haiff bein ready to giff 
my lyff whar it was nocht halff sa weill wared, at the 
pleasour of my God. I leived out of your countrey 

1 Over the sea. 



38 FAMOUS SCOTS 

ten yeirs as weill as in it. Yet God be glorified, 
it will nocht ly in your power to hang nor exyll His 
treuthe ! ' Sometimes, as here, words show a valour 
as great as doughtiest deeds of battle : they give the 
man who has uttered them a place for ever in the book 
of honour ; they pass into the storehouse of our most 
cherished legends ; and as often as crises occur in our 
history which make a severe demand upon our virtue, 
they are recalled to stir the moral pulse of the nation 
and brace it to its duty. No man in Scottish history 
has left his country a richer legacy of this kind than 
Melville. 

Having failed with Melville, Morton found a ready 
tool to his hand in another minister of the Church, 
Patrick Adamson of Paisley. He was a man of some 
learning and eloquence and of great personal ambition, 
bent on climbing to a high place in the Church, and 
unscrupulous in his choice of means. At first he was 
a pronounced opponent of the new Church scheme, 
and often denounced it from the pulpit. His clever 
satire on the Tulchan bishops has never been forgotten 
— 'There are three sorts of bishops: my Lord Bishop 
— he is in the Roman Church ; my Lord's Bishop (the 
Tulchan), who while my Lord gets the benefice, serves 
for nothing but to make his title good ; and the Lord's 
Bishop, who is the true minister of the Gospel.' 

For some time Adamson cultivated an intimacy 
with Melville, who, however, never trusted him. Mel- 
ville, ever shrewd in discerning character — 'he had 
a wounderfull sagacitie in smelling out of men's 



ANDREW MELVILLE 39 

naturalls and dispositions ' — early saw that Adamson 
would prove a better servant of the Court than of 
the Church. 

When the Assembly met in the autumn of 1576 it 
was reported that Adamson had been presented by 
Morton to the See of St. Andrews, and the question 
was put to him in open court whether he meant to 
accept it, when he declared he was in the hands of his 
brethren, and would act in the matter as they desired. 
The Assembly vetoed the appointment. Adamson, 
however, in violation alike of the Assembly's Act and 
of his own promise, entered on the See. The contempt 
his conduct awakened was universal, and was freely ex- 
pressed even within the Regent's Court. One of the 
officers of the household, who had frequently heard 
Adamson come over the phrase, 'The prophet would 
mean this,' in his expositions of Scripture, remarked, 
on hearing that he had assumed the bishopric, 'For 
als aft as it was repeated by Mr. Patrick, "the prophet 
would mean this," I understood never what the profit 
means until now.' But to Adamson, who 'had his 
reward/ the titular primacy of Scotland was of more 
consequence than the respect of his countrymen : he 
retained his place in defiance of the Church, and was 
for many a day a troubler of its peace. 

At the Assembly held in April 1578 a second blow 
was struck at the bishops : it was enacted that they 
should cease to be styled by lordly names, and that no 
more bishops should be elected. Two years later, at 
the Dundee Assembly of 1580, the Church took the 



40 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



final step against the Tulchan system by abolishing 
the Episcopate and requiring all bishops to demit 
their office and give in their submission to the pro- 
vincial synods. The resolutions of the Assembly were 
carried without a single dissenting voice, and within a 
year the bishops with only five exceptions had sur- 
rendered their sees. 

During the six years Melville had been the leader 
of the Assembly great results had been reached. The 
Church had gradually withdrawn from the Tulchan 
compromise, and had at the same time elaborated a 
constitution for itself on the basis of pure Presbytery. 
Mention has already been made of the adoption of 
this constitution — the Second Book of Discipline — in 
1578. It is not necessary to describe it, as it is 
seen in its living embodiment in all the Presbyterian 
churches of Scotland to-day; though there is one 
important part of it which was never carried out, 
namely, the allocation of the patrimony of the Church 
to the purposes of religion, education, the maintenance 
of the poor, and the undertaking of public works for 
the common good. It enunciates the principle of the 
two jurisdictions — 'the two swords' — which has played 
so important a part in Scottish history, and it protects 
the rights of the people in the election of their 
ministers. One significant difference between the 
Second Book of Discipline and the First may be 
mentioned — the abolition of the office of Superinten- 
dent. This office had been used as a handle by those 
who wished to introduce an order in the Church above 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



41 



the ministry ; it thus lent itself as an inlet to Episcopacy, 
and so it was resolved to put an end to it. 

The unanimity of the Assembly in the adoption of 
the 'Discipline/ and in all the steps towards the de- 
position of the bishops, was remarkable. The House 
never once divided. In all its counsels and labours 
Melville had the principal share, and it was mainly by 
his learning, by his energy, by his mastery in debate, 
by his unyielding attitude to the Court, that they issued 
as they did in the re-establishment of the Church on 
its original Presbyterian and popular basis. 

James Melville has left us some charming pictures 
of the Assemblies of that period and of the private 
intercourse of its members. 6 It was a maist pleasand 
and comfortable thing to be present at these Assemblies, 
thair was sic frequencie 1 and reverence ; with halines 
in zeall at the doctrine quhilk soundit mightelie, and 
the Sessiones at everie meiting, whar, efter ernest 
prayer, maters war gravlie and cleirlie proponit ; over- 
tures maid be the wysest ; douttes reasonit and dis- 
cussit be the lernedest and maist quik; and, finalie, 
all withe a voice concluding upon maters resolved and 
cleirit, and referring things intricat and uncleired to 
farder advysment.' 

In the inmost circle of Melville's friends were such 
men as Arbuthnot, Principal of Aberdeen, and Smeton, 
his own successor as Principal of Glasgow — both, like 
himself, eminent in learning ; David Ferguson, minister 
of Dunfermline, the patriarch of the Assembly, and one 
1 Large attendance. 



42 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



of the six original members of the Reformed Church ; 
and the four ministers of Edinburgh — all notable men 
— John Durie, James Lawson, James Balfour, and 
Walter Balcanquhal. At Assembly times he and his 
nephew met these brethren daily, for the most part, at 
John Durie's table. The group contained the very 
flower and chivalry of the Church. At their meals 
they discussed the incidents of the day's sittings, and 
their conversation was enlivened with many a plea- 
santry — it was always Melville's ' form ' at table to 
'interlase' discourse on serious subjects with ( merry 
interludes.' When the company rose from table they 
held lengthened devotional exercises : in the reading of 
Scripture each in his turn made his observations on the 
passage ; and we can well believe the estimate of some of 
those who were present, that had everything been taken 
down they could not have wished a fuller and better 
commentary than fell at these times from this company 
of ripe and ready interpreters of the Word. When the 
exercises were over, the brethren entered into delibera- 
tion on the causes to be brought before the Assembly, 
and came to an understanding as to the course they 
would pursue in dealing with them. Those who would 
come to the secret of the noble part so often played 
by the ministers of the Scottish Church in crucial 
periods of its history, will fail to find it where they 
leave out of account the inward correspondence which 
these men, by such fellowship, sought to maintain with 
one another and with the Master of Assemblies. 



CHAPTER V 



THE 'BIGGING UP' OF THE BISHOPS UNDER LENNOX 
AND ARRAN — MELVILLE'S FLIGHT TO ENGLAND 

' To deal with proud men is but pain, 
For either must ye fight or flee, 
Or else no answer make again, 
But play the beast and let them be.' 

The Raid of the Reidswyre. 

In March 1578, James, then in his twelfth year, 

assumed the government. In Morton he had had an 

adviser who was not friendly to the Church, but those 

who displaced Morton and brought him before long to 

the scaffold were its determined and avowed enemies. 

During the few years with which we have to deal in 

this chapter, the Government was directed by two men 

whose character and policy were detested by the nation, 

and who filled up their short tenure of power with as 

many exasperating acts of despotism as it was possible 

to crowd into it. The more prominent of the two, 

Esme Stewart, a kinsman of the King, cousin of his 

father Darnley, was a foreigner and had been trained 

in the French Court. He had a brief and inglorious 

career in Scotland. He had no sooner joined the 

King's Council than he became the master of its 

policy, being the first of the grata persona who in 

43 



44 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



succession established themselves in the Court of James 
and brought him under their control. There is little 
wonder that the boy-king, who had passed through the 
stern hands of George Buchanan and had spent his 
time for the most part with men of our austere Scottish 
character, should have felt the seductiveness of the gay 
foreigner 'with his French fasons and toyes.' Esme 
Stewart had not been long in the country before James 
began to decorate him with honours and enrich him 
with gifts of lands and money. He was created Duke 
of Lennox and made Lord High Chancellor, in which 
latter capacity he had the custody of the King's person 
— a pawn which in this reign was often decisive in the 
contest for political supremacy. He soon filled the 
Court with men of his own stamp. One of these, only 
second to himself in influence with the King, was 
another Stewart — James, the infamous son of Lord 
Ochiltree. Like his patron, James Stewart soon received 
high promotion, being made Earl of Arran. 

Lennox had come to Scotland as an emissary of the 
French Government and as an agent of the Guises, in 
order to induce James to break off his alliance with 
England in favour of the old alliance with France, and 
to restore the Roman Church in the country ; but the 
ministers having become informed of his designs, raised 
such a storm against him that he was driven to make 
a public renunciation of Popery, and obliged to pro- 
secute his mission by more cautious and circuitous 
methods than he intended to use. Lennox's evil 
influence on James in ecclesiastical affairs soon became 



ANDREW MELVILLE 45 

apparent. On the See of Glasgow becoming vacant, 
the benefice was appropriated by himself and the title 
bestowed on Robert Montgomery, minister of Stirling. 
The Church at once rose up in arms against this flagrant 
violation of its authority, put Montgomery on his trial 
for contumacy, found him guilty, and sentenced him 
to deposition and excommunication. It was at the 
instance of Melville, who, in this as in many another 
crisis in the Church's history in his time, was called to 
the Moderator's chair, that the Assembly took action 
against Montgomery, and this was done in defiance 
of a royal inhibition. The inferior courts to which 
the judicial process at different stages was remitted 
showed the same determined spirit, so deep and wide- 
spread was the indignation that was roused against 
Lennox by his attempt to thrust bishops anew upon 
the Church, and against the minister of the Church 
who had so basely lent himself to it. When the case 
came before the Presbytery of Glasgow, Montgomery 
himself appeared, accompanied by the provost and 
bailies and an escort of soldiers, and produced an 
interdict under the King's hand against its proceeding. 
The Presbytery paid no Jieed to the intruders, and was 
going on with the business, when the Moderator was 
ejected from the chair, assaulted, and taken off to 
prison. Still the Presbytery proceeded till it finished 
the case and carried out the injunction of the 
Assembly. Among the crowd gathered at the Presby- 
tery house was a band of students from the University, 
who in making a demonstration of their sympathy with 



4 6 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



the ministers were charged by the soldiery, and some 
blood was shed. The ministers of the East vied with 
those of the West in supporting the action of the 
Assembly. John Durie, the most powerful and 
popular among them, distinguished himself by the 
boldness with which he spoke against Lennox as the 
disturber of the peace of the Church. The sentence 
of excommunication, which had been transmitted to 
the Edinburgh Presbytery, was pronounced by John 
Davidson, minister of Liberton, and read in most of 
the pulpits in Edinburgh and Glasgow on the following 
Sabbath. A meeting of the Privy Council was im- 
mediately called, in which proceedings were taken 
against the ministers of Edinburgh, and John Durie 
was banished from the city. 

A special meeting of Assembly was called to deal 
with this serious state of affairs, Melville being still in 
the chair. In his opening sermon he made a vehement 
attack on the Court for its renewed attempt to over- 
throw the Church's order and restore Episcopacy, and 
spoke of the King's claim to spiritual authority as a 
c bludie gullie' thrust into the Commonwealth — a 
description which the later history of Scotland has 
sufficiently verified. The House, at one with the 
Moderator, drew up a statement of the Church's recent 
grievances, and appointed Melville and some other 
members to present it to the King at Perth, where he 
was residing at the time. To Perth accordingly they 
went. This was a daring step in the circumstances, 
when there was such exasperation in the Court, and 



ANDREW MELVILLE 47 

when its councils were led by two such men as Lennox 
and Arran. 'News was sparpelet athort 1 the cuntry 
that the ministers war all to be thair massacred. ' 
Melville was warned by a friendly courtier, his name- 
sake Sir James Melville of Halhill, of the risk he 
ran in carrying out the Assembly's commission. 'X 
thank God/ he answered, 1 I am nocht fleyed nor 
feible-spirited in the cause and message of Christ. 
Come what God please to send, our commission sal 
be dischargit.' When he and the other members of 
the deputation appeared before the King in Council 
and read their remonstrance, Arran interfered, when 
there occurred another of those historic scenes 
associated with Melville's name, in which he displayed 
such splendid courage in the resistance of tyranny. 
An arrogant assailant, like steel striking against flint, 
always elicited a flash of his noblest manhood. 4 Arran 
began to threttin with thrawin 2 brow and bosting 
langage. "What," says he, "wha dar subscryve thir 
treasanable Articles?" "We dar, and will subscryve 
them,"' answered Melville, taking, as he spoke, the pen 
from the clerk and putting his name to the document ; 
and then, beckoning to his fellow-deputies, he bade 
them follow his example, which they all did. The 
boldness of the deed cowed even Lennox and Arran. 
They saw that day that 1 the Kirk had a bak,' and were 
glad to dismiss the deputies without further debate. 

The firmness with which the two Court favourites 
were handl ed by the ministers inspirited the nobles to 

1 Spread athwart, 2 Frowning. 



4 8 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



execute a plot that had been laid to get the King out 
of their hands and end their intolerable supremacy. 
As soon as the King's person had been secured by the 
Raid of Ruthven, Lennox was banished from the 
realm, and Arran enjoined to confine himself to his 
own estate. 

For a while the Church had rest and breathed freely 
after the strain that had been put upon it. A few 
days after the Raid of Ruthven a great outburst of 
popular feeling in favour of Presbyterianism took place 
in Edinburgh, the occasion being the return of John 
Durie from banishment. Ther was a grait concurs of 
the haill town, wha met him at the Nather Bow ; and, 
going upe the streit, with bear heads and loud voices, 
sang to the praise of God, and testifeing of grait joy 
and consolation, the 124th Psalm, "Now Israel may 
say," etc., till heavin and erthe resoundit. This noyes, 
when the Due [of Lennox] being in the town, hard, 
and ludgit in the Hie-gat, luiked out and saw, he rave 
his berde for anger, and hasted him af the town.' 

The peace of the Church was short-lived. In 
midsummer of 1583 the King made his escape from 
the Ruthven lords and betook himself to the Castle 
of St. Andrews. The old gang at once returned to 
Court. Lennox had died in exile; but Arran was 
reinstalled at the Council-board, and immediately 
renewed the old measures against the ministers, 
whose part in causing his recent fall made him more 
than ever determined to crush them. He began with 
Melville, who was summoned before the Council — it 



ANDREW MELVILLE 49 

was in February 1584 — on a trumped-up charge of 
using treasonable language in the course of one of his 
sermons. Melville declined the jurisdiction of the 
Council on the ground that he was not accused of a 
civil offence, but of doctrine uttered in the pulpit. 
His declinature was taken so hotly by the King and 
Arran that all who were present felt he was as good 
as a dead man ; but * Mr. Andro, never jarging 1 nor 
daschit 2 a whit, with magnanimus courage, mightie 
force of sprit and fouthe 3 of evidence of reason and 
langage, plainly tauld the King and Council that they 
presumed ower bauldlie ... to tak upon them to 
judge the doctrine and controll the ambassadors and 
messengers of a King and Counsall graiter nor they, 
and far above tham ! "And that," sayes he, "ye 
may see weakness, owersight, and rashness in tak- 
ing upon you that quhilk yie nather aught nor can 
do" (lowsing a litle Hebrew Byble fra his belt and 
clanking it down on the burd before King and 
Chancelar), "thair is," says he, "my instructiones 
and warrand."' A number of witnesses, well-known 
enemies of Melville, who had been brought from St. 
Andrews to support the accusation, gave their evidence, 
but to no purpose. Instead of being discharged, 
however, he was condemned for the boldness of his 
defence — which was construed as a new offence, — and 
sentenced to imprisonment in the Castle of Edinburgh 
during his Majesty's pleasure. 

Rulers who could so outrage justice as to deprive a 

1 Swerving. 2 Abashed. 3 Abundance. 

D 



50 FAMOUS SCOTS 

subject of his liberty on such a ground were not to 
be trusted with his life. So all Melville's friends and 
Melville himself thought. They were persuaded that 
Arran, at least, was bent on silencing the man who 
was his most formidable opponent. His friends, 
quoting the proverb, 'lowes and leiving,' 1 urged him 
to flight, and he himself resolved on it, having not only 
his personal safety but also the interests of the Church 
and the commonweal to consider and safeguard. 
During the few days he was still left free, he appeared 
as usual among his friends, and in the best of spirits. 
At dinner in James Lawson's manse, where many of 
his friends gathered to meet him, he seemed the only 
light-hearted man in the company. ' He ate and 
drank and crakked als merrelie and frie-myndit as at 
anie tyme and mair,' drinking to his gaoler and fellow- 
prisoners, and bidding his brethren make ready to 
follow. While seated at table, the macer of the 
Council appeared with a warrant charging him to 
enter the Castle of Blackness within twenty-four hours. 
When the macer had withdrawn, Melville left the 
manse, and, confiding his intention to only a few 
friends, made his escape from the city, accompanied 
by his brother Roger, and within the twenty-four hours 
was safely over the Border and lodged in Berwick. 

Melville's exile at this juncture, when he was so 
much needed at home to meet the tyranny of the 
Court, was a severe blow to his brethren in the 
ministry and to all the friends of the Church. They 
were entering a heavy battle when they were deprived 
1 Loose and living. 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



S 1 



of their trusted captain. More than James Melville 
could have said at that time that they felt a 'cauld 
heavie lumpe 1 lying on their hearts. The ministers of 
Edinburgh showed their characteristic spirit in this crisis, 
and raised such a storm against the King and Council 
on account of their treatment of Melville that the Court 
had to defend itself by an apologetic proclamation. 

Within a few months after Melville's flight measures 
were passed through Parliament which upset all that 
the Church had done during the previous decade to 
extricate itself from the confusion of the Tulchan 
Episcopacy. They were devised by Arran and by 
Archbishop Adamson, who persistently used his 
influence at Court for the subversion of Presbytery. 
These measures — 'The Black Acts' — declared the 
supremacy of the King in all matters — ecclesiastical 
and civil — and made all rejection of his authority a 
treasonable act : they deprived the Church of the 
rights of free assembly, free speech, and independent 
legislation; and they empowered the bishops to re- 
establish their order in every part of the kingdom. 
A clause was added requiring all ministers to sign an 
act of submission to the bishops on penalty of losing 
their offices and their livings. 

On these Acts being proclaimed at the Cross of 
Edinburgh, the ministers of the city — James Lawson, 
Walter Balcanquhal, and Robert Pont — appeared and 
made protest against them, when Arran was so 
incensed by their conduct that he at once ordered 
their arrest, and swore he would make Lawson's head 
'leap from its halse though it was as big as a hay- 



52 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



stack.' More than they were in jeopardy of their 
lives; every man in the country who had been a 
pronounced friend of liberty had cause to fear, 
Lawson, Balcanquhal, and Pont fled, with many 
others. A warrant had been procured by Archbishop 
Adamson for the apprehension of James Melville, 
when he made his escape by open boat to Berwick. 

The course of events showed that the ministers had 
reason for their flight. Some of the most zealous of 
those left in the country were thrown into prison for 
refusing to conform to the Acts, or for remember- 
ing their banished brethren in public prayer. One 
minister was tried and sentenced to death on a charge 
that a letter from one of these brethren had been 
found in possession of his wife; and though the 
sentence was not executed, the scaffold was put up, 
and kept up for some time, before his prison window. 
Nor were the ministers the only sufferers. Glasgow 
University, which Melville's teaching and influence 
had leavened with the principles of liberty, was made 
to feel the heavy hand of the Government: its 
professors were imprisoned, its rector was banished, 
and its gates were closed. 

Popular indignation began to break forth in many 
quarters. In St. Andrews the students went in a body 
to the Archbishop's palace and warned him that he 
was courting the fate of Hamilton and Beaton ; while 
visiting Edinburgh, Adamson had to be protected by 
the police; Montgomery was mobbed at Ayr; and 
wherever the bishops appeared there were hostile 
demonstrations on the part of the people. 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



53 



The Court, however, defied public opinion, and went 
on with its coercive policy, rigidly enforcing submis- 
sion to the authority of the bishops. At first the great 
majority of the ministers refused; but on a clause 
being added to the deed of submission, to the effect 
that it required them only to conform 'according to 
the Word of God/ most of them gave way. The 
clause was suggested by Adamson, and it reflects his 
character. It was one of those shrewd devices for 
causing division among the ministers, and providing 
a middle way for men distracted by the desire to be 
faithful to their consciences on the one hand, and the 
wish to escape persecution on the other, which were 
often resorted to by the Court throughout the entire 
course of the struggle against prelacy. Some of the 
stalwarts of the Church fell into the trap which 
Adamson had set for them in this shallow compromise, 
and their example led many others to yield. One of 
the banished brethren, in a letter written at the time, 
states that all the ministers in the Lothians and the 
Merse, with only ten exceptions, had subscribed ; that 
John Erskine of Dun had not only subscribed, but 
was making himself a pest to the ministers in the 
North by importuning them to follow his example ; 
that John Craig, so long Knox's colleague, had given 
in and was speaking hotly against those who held out; 
that even the redoubtable John Durie had 'cracked 
his curple ' 1 at last ; and that the pulpits of Edinburgh 
were silent, except a very few 'who sigh and sob under 
the Cross.' 

1 Crupper. 



54 FAMOUS SCOTS 

Events took such a course that the ministers who 
subscribed might, after all, have held out with a whole 
skin. They capitulated to their enemies on the very 
eve of their enemies' fall ; for the exasperation of the 
nation under such insolent tyranny as Arran's could 
no longer be held in. Davison, the English 
Ambassador, writing to the Court at this time, says : 
s It is incredible how universally the man is hated by 
all men of all degrees, and what a jealousy is sunken 
into the heads of some of the wisest here of his 
ambitious and immoderate thoughts. . . . His usurp 
power and disposition of all things, both in Courts, 
Parliaments, and Sessions, at the appetite of himself 
and his good lady, with many other things do bewray 
matter enough to suspect the fruits of ambition and 
inordinate thirst for rule 1 ; and he adds, c I find infinite 
appearances that the young King's course . . . doth 
carry him headlong to his own danger and hazard of 
his estate. He hath, since the change at St. Andrews, 
continually followed forth implacable hatred and 
pursuit against all such as in defence of his life and 
crown have hazarded their own lives, living, fortunes 
in all that they have, and now throws himself into the 
arms of those that have heretofore preferred his 
mother's satisfaction to his own surety, and do yet aim 
at that mark, with the apparent danger of religion 
which hath already received a greater wound by the 
late confusions and alterations than can be easily 
repaired.' Other satellites of the Court helped to make 
the country restive. Adamson especially provoked 
the people by many petty acts of tyranny, such as the 



ANDREW MELVILLE 55 

ejection from the manses of the wives of the banished 
ministers on account of a spirited defence of their 
husbands, which they had published in reply to 
charges made against them by the Archbishop. 

At the same time the country was visited by two 
great calamities which were interpreted as divine 
judgments on the misdeeds of the Government. 
The harvest was destroyed by heavy rains, and there 
was an outbreak of the plague of such virulence as to 
spread terror in all the larger cities. Edinburgh was 
so desolated, that when James Melville and others of 
the banished ministers passed through the streets on 
their return home, they found them empty, — 1 About 
alleavin hours he cam rydding in at the watergett of 
the Abbay, upe throw the Canow-gett, and red in at 
the Nether Bow, throw the graitt street of Edinbruche 
to the Wast Port, in all the quhilk way we saw nocht 
three persons, so that I miskend Edinbruche, and 
almost forgot that ever I had seen sic a toun.' The 
people felt that ' the Lord's hand wald nocht stay unto 
the tyme the Ministers of God and Noble-men war 
brought hame again.' The banished lords, emboldened 
by the dissatisfaction of the people and the support 
of the English Government, and joining with several 
Border chiefs who had old scores of their own against 
Arran, invaded the country, marched to Stirling, where 
the King and Court had retired on hearing of their 
approach, and took possession of the town. Arran 
fled, and James was glad to come to terms with the 
lords. 



CHAPTER VI 



THE KING^ SURRENDER TO THE CHURCH 

1 The love of kings is like the blowing of winds 

... or the sea which makes 
Men hoist their sails in a flattering calm, 
And to cut their masts in a rough storm.' 

Johnson. 

This coup d'etat left Melville and the other exiled 
brethren free to return to Scotland, as they did in 
November 1585. During his stay of nearly two years 
in England Melville had not been idle. He carried 
on a correspondence with Protestant ministers in 
France and Switzerland for the purpose of correcting 
misrepresentations which Archbishop Adamson had 
been industriously circulating among them in regard 
to the conduct of the ministers in Scotland. In all 
its struggles, from the Reformation to the time of 
Renwick, the Scottish Church sought to keep the 
churches of the Continent informed of its affairs and 
to secure their sympathy. When in London Melville 
diligently used his influence with leading English 
statesmen in favour of the cause which he represented. 
He also took advantage of his proximity to Oxford 
and Cambridge to visit those Universities, where he 
was received with the greatest courtesy and respect. 

56 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



57 



The other ministers who had fled to England had 
likewise been fully occupied; they had preached in 
Berwick, in Newcastle, in London, and wherever they 
found an open door. James Melville had, for a while, 
most of the banished Ruthven lords in his congrega- 
tion at Newcastle, and he had sought to invigorate 
them as the supporters of the liberties of the Church 
in the event of their returning home to take part 
again in political life; but, as it proved, with little 
effect. 

The Church soon found that it had gained little by 
the change of Government. If Arran and his set 
were its bitter enemies, the new Councillors, the 
Ruthven lords, were, at the best, indifferent friends. 
Though they owed their restored power largely to the 
courageous resistance of the ministers to the Arran 
administration, and though they had pledged them- 
selves during their exile to use their influence, when 
opportunity should come, to undo the evils of that 
administration as they had affected the Church, they 
were content to secure their own interest and left the 
Church to look after itself. 

Parliament having been summoned to meet in 
Linlithgow in December 1585, for the purpose of 
reponing the nobles in their estates and giving its 
sanction to their administration, the ministers resolved 
to hold a meeting of Assembly beforehand in Dun- 
fermline to prepare a representation of the Church's 
interests for the Parliament. When the members of 
Assembly reached that city they found that the Provost 



58 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



had closed the gates against them, by order, it was 
said, of the Court. The meeting was held, but 
adjourned, after resolving that it should be resumed 
at Linlithgow. James Melville, fresh from his journey 
from England, arrived in Linlithgow on the eve of 
the Assembly, and found his brethren much dispirited. 
They had almost come to a rupture among themselves, 
high words having passed between those of them who 
had subscribed the deed of submission to the bishops 
and those who had refused. This dispute had caused 
much trouble to Andrew Melville. In a letter of 
James Melville written at the time to a friend, he says : 
1 Mr. Andro hath been a traicked 1 man since he cam 
hame, ryding up and doun all the countrie to see if 
he might move the brethren to repent and joyne 
together/ The Assembly had little hope of Parliament 
doing anything towards the repeal of the Black Acts. 
If the nobles now in power would not press the King 
to redress the Church's grievances, it was certain that 
he would do nothing in that direction of his own 
accord. James was not in a mood to oblige the 
Church. He could not conceal his revengeful feelings 
towards the ministers who had fled with the Ruthven 
lords, and especially towards Melville. The Assembly, 
however, did its duty. It sent a deputation to the 
nobles to urge them to put the Church's claims before 
the King. The nobles refused, and the deputation 
went to the King himself. Melville was its spokesman, 
and many sharp and hot words passed between him 
i Overtoiled. 



ANDREW MELVILLE 59 

and James. At length the King ordered the Assembly 
to lay before him a statement of its objections to the 
Black Acts. This was done, and within twenty-four 
hours James issued a reply from his own pen, in which 
he showed a conciliatory spirit, and made explanations 
to take the edge off the harshness with which the Acts 
had been framed, but made no alteration in their 
substance. 

If Parliament did not know when to take occasion 
by the hand to win concessions from the King in the 
interests of liberty, he knew how to use his opportunity 
for strengthening his own prerogatives. He brought 
forward a measure which the Parliament passed, con- 
stituting it a capital offence to criticise the King's 
conduct or government, and making it unlawful for his 
subjects to enter into any association for political ends 
without the consent of the throne. 

At this time a fresh casus belli between the Church 
and the Crown arose through the Church's severe but 
well-merited handling of Archbishop Adamson. No 
man in the kingdom was more responsible for the 
recent troubles than Adamson, except Arran, whom he 
encouraged and supported in all his arbitrary measures. 
The minister of the Church who first opened fire on the 
Archbishop was James Melville. He had consulted 
beforehand with his uncle ; but those who think he was 
too amiable to have any fight in him, or that on this 
or any other occasion he was only doing his uncle's 
bidding, do not know the man. His courage was as 
great as his uncle's, if he had a milder manner and a 



6o 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



calmer temper; and his action on this occasion was 
the irrepressible outburst of his honest indignation 
at Adamson's treachery in the affairs of the Church 
ever since his elevation to the See of St. Andrews. 

In March 1586 the Synod of Fife met at St. 
Andrews, and James Melville as the retiring Moderator 
had to preach the opening sermon. It was a full 
meeting. The Archbishop with a 'grait pontificalite 
and big countenance' was seated by the preacher's 
side. The subject of discourse was the evil that had 
been done to the Church from the time of its planting 
by the ambitious spirit and corrupt lives of men hold- 
ing its highest offices. On reaching his application, the 
preacher, turning to the Archbishop and directing his 
speech to him personally, recalled his long course of 
disloyalty to the Church and his persistent efforts to 
overthrow its discipline, as well as all the injuries he 
had done to religion by his avarice and ambition : he 
spoke of him as a dangerous member who needed to 
be courageously cut off in order to save the body ; and 
then, addressing himself to the Assembly, exhorted it 
to 1 play the chirurgeon ! ! This bold and unexpected 
attack unmanned the Archbishop — 'he was sa dashit 
and strucken with terror and trembling that he could 
skarse sitt, to let be stand on his feet.' It was manifest 
that the Moderator had the whole House at his back, 
and it at once entered on a process against Adamson. 
At first he declined its jurisdiction, boasting that it was 
rather his place to judge the Assembly. At length, 
however, he condescended to defend himself ; and the 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



61 



process ended in his excommunication. A day or two 
after he retaliated by excommunicating, on his own 
authority, within his own church, Andrew Melville and 
other brethren. He also despatched to the King an 
appeal against the Synod's sentence, defying the 
sentence at the same time by appearing in his own 
pulpit on the following Sabbath. On the same Sabbath 
Melville was preaching in his own college chapel to a 
crowded congregation ; and a neighbouring laird, with a 
number of his friends, having come to the city on that 
Sabbath to hear Melville, there w r as an unusual stir 
which drew most of the townsfolk to the chapel. When 
the last bell was ringing, and Adamson was about to 
enter the pulpit, a canard reached him to the effect that 
a body of local gentry and the citizens gathered within 
the college gates had formed a conspiracy to seize him 
and hang him on the spot. Calling to his servants to 
guard him, he ran out of the church and sought refuge 
in the steeple, and it took the magistrates all their skill 
to persuade him to leave his hiding-place and accept 
their convoy to the palace — 'he was halff against his 
will ruggit 1 out, and halff borne and careit away 1 amid 
the derision of the onlookers. 

Adamson had appealed to the Assembly which was 
to meet in May. The King, being indignant at the 
treatment the Archbishop had received, was resolved 
to get the sentence annulled, and he set himself to 
tune the Assembly to his mind. He called a meeting 
by royal proclamation, and gave it out that he would 
i Pulled. 



62 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



attend it himself. The temper of the Assembly was 
such that the resolutions that were to effect the King's 
object had to be cautiously framed, and were carried 
by a bare majority of votes. The Court, without 
judging the Synod's proceedings and sentence, and 
only after Adamson had made an apology for his 
pretentions to authority in the Church, and had given 
a promise to drop them for the future, resolved to 
restore him. The case had been no sooner disposed 
of than Melville was summoned before the King and 
commanded to go into ward north of the Tay, that the 
Archbishop might have a better chance of recovering 
his lost prestige — a restriction which, however, was 
soon removed on a strong representation being made 
to the King of the loss which the University was 
suffering by the banishment of Melville. 

From this time the Archbishop fell into disgrace, 
both for his shameful public career and for the offences 
of his private life, especially his extravagance and con- 
sequent debts. Two years later he was deposed by the 
Assembly, when the King cast him off, and gave the 
temporalities of his see to one of the Court favourites. 
After that Adamson never lifted his head. When he 
had fallen into poverty and sickness he made a pitiful 
appeal to Melville, which was most generously met. 
His old opponent visited him, and for months provided 
for him out of his own purse ; and it was through the 
good offices of both the Melvilles that he was able 
to make his peace with the Church before he died. 
Perhaps it is this last act of humbleness, when he had 



ANDREW MELVILLE 63 

lost all repute with the world, that gives him his best 
claim on our respect. 

For some months previous to the Assembly in which 
Adamson's case was disposed of, the King had been 
exerting himself so to manage the members amenable 
to his influence, that he should not only secure his 
object in this particular business, but at the same time 
prevail with the Assembly to take a step backward in 
its general polity. He dared not propose much more 
than titular precedence for the bishops — a concession 
only wrung from the Assembly : and for a quid pro quo 
he had to give his consent to a measure for carrying 
out the provisions of the Second Book of Discipline 
by organising presbyteries and synods throughout the 
country. This was of course another compromise, but 
the Church's concessions were reduced to a minimum. 
James could only secure a footing for the bishops, and 
bide his time for restoring their supremacy. 

In the Parliament of 1 5S7, when Melville was present 
as a commissioner from the Assembly, a measure was 
passed, which, though it originated with the Court and 
was not so intended, dealt a serious blow to the 
hopes of the promoters of Episcopacy. The King had 
just attained his twenty-first year, and there was a law 
in the statute-book providing that all heirs of estates 
which had been forfeited through any cause should, 
on reaching their majority, have the opportunity of 
reclaiming them. Advantage was taken of this law 
to revoke grants of Crown lands made during the 
King's minority ; and all the Church lands were 



64 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



annexed to the Crown. This measure stripped the 
bishops of their benefices and abolished their legal 
status, and so cancelled the chief ground on which the 
Court had contended for the maintenance of their 
order. By this measure the King, in his need or 
greed, or both, played for once into the hands of the 
Church. 

In the following year, 1588, the prodigious attempt 
of Philip to invade England and overthrow the Protes- 
tant power in the two kingdoms very greatly strength- 
ened the Presbyterian cause in Scotland, and made 
Episcopacy more than ever repugnant to the people, as 
having in it so much of the leaven of the Old Church. 
Whatever roused the Protestant spirit of the country 
gave Presbytery a firmer hold as the Church system 
most antagonistic to Popery, and also to arbitrary 
government which seeks in Popery its natural ally. At 
every crisis such as that which now arose, it made a 
fresh appeal to the deepest feelings of the nation. 

At the time when the Armada was approaching our 
shores the country had no confidence in the patriotism 
of the King. There were sinister suspicions of his 
attitude to Romanism, caused by the favours shown 
at Court to nobles of that faith ; by his retention of 
many of its adherents in his service, and his reluctance 
to take action against the Romish priests, the Jesuits, 
and the rest of the army of Papal emissaries who were 
sowing treason throughout the land. All through his 
life James was characterised by a singular unseason- 
ableness in his activity. * There is a time/ says the 



ANDREW MELVILLE 65 

preacher, 'to every purpose under the heaven,' but 
with James there was always an incongruity between 
the time and the purpose. The year before, he had 
scandalised the Court by dancing and giggling at a 
levee held immediately after his mother's death; and 
now, when he should have been arming the country 
against the Spanish invasion, he was engaged in writing 
an academic treatise against the Pope. Perhaps his 
conduct was due to a deeper fault in his character 
— his ingrained duplicity. As, after his accession 
to the English throne, he sought to thwart the 
anti-Papal policy of his own Government when Spain 
was threatening the Protestant power in Germany, so 
now he may have been dissembling his real sympathies 
in writing against the Papacy. At all events, he never 
showed by any act of his reign that he dreaded the 
Papal power as much as he dreaded that of the Scot- 
tish Presbyterians or the English Puritans. 

The Armada brought Melville once more to the 
front. It was his voice that roused the nation to a 
sense of its danger, and his energy that organised the 
nation to meet it. He summoned the Assembly, being 
Moderator at the time: the Assembly stirred up the 
nobles and the burgesses, and the whole nation joined 
to offer resistance to the invasion. 

From this time the favourable tide for the fortunes 
of Presbytery which had set in previous to the 
Armada flowed with a rush, which within a few years 
carried it to undisputed ascendency in the land. The 
people's attachment to it was too strong for James, and 

E 



66 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



even within his own Council it had come to be recog- 
nised that acquiescence in it was inevitable. Maitland, 
Lethington's brother, the Chancellor of the kingdom, 
who was the strongest man in the Council, and for long 
a supporter of the King's policy in ecclesiastical affairs, 
was now won over, by the logic of events, to its support. 
He had the sense to perceive that the kingdom could 
never prosper till the Church was satisfied, and that the 
Church could never be satisfied with any other than its 
own freely chosen economy. He also saw that if the 
King was to maintain friendship with the English 
Government, he must sever himself from those forces 
in the country that were opposed to the Church, as 
they were all under the suspicion of working in the 
interests of the power which had made so determined 
an attempt at the overthrow of the neighbouring king- 
dom. ' He helde the King upon twa groundes sure, 
nather to cast out with the Kirk nor with England.' 
Prelacy, he knew, was but the King's choice for the 
nation: Presbytery was the nation's choice for itself. 
Maitland's influence was great with the King, and 
from this time it was used steadily in favour of a 
new departure in his Church policy. 

At the same time there arose, in the person of Robert 
Bruce, minister of Edinburgh, one who rendered 
powerful service to the Presbyterian cause, and who, 
in the whole history of the struggle, was singular in this 
respect, that while possessing the entire confidence of 
his brethren he also carried great weight in the Council 
of the King. Of good family, second son of the Laird 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



67 



of Airth, he had studied for the Bar and then 
abandoned it for the Church. For many years of his 
life he had been conscious of striving against the work 
of grace in his heart, and against the conviction that 
he ought to devote himself to the ministry, and had 
thereby suffered sore trouble of conscience. At last a 
crisis came, which he describes as ' a court of justice 
holden on his soul,' which i chased 1 him to his grace. 
Immediately thereafter he sought the counsel of 
Melville, to whom he had been greatly attracted, 
who encouraged him to enter the ministry, and under 
whom he was trained for it. Bruce commanded respect 
from all classes and on all hands • 1 the godlie for his 
puissant and maist moving doctrine lovit him; the 
wardlings for his parentage and place reverenced him ; 
and the enemies for bath stude in awe of him.' Bruce 
was a special friend of Chancellor Maitland, through 
whom he was received with favour at the Court ; and 
he brought Maitland and Melville together and made 
them friends. 

His marriage, which took place in 1589, was used 
by James as an occasion for a public demonstration of 
his reconciliation to the Church. Before leaving for 
Denmark to fetch his bride, he made Bruce an extra- 
ordinary member of his Council, professing at the 
same time such confidence in him as he might have 
given to a viceroy, which indeed Bruce virtually be- 
came. During the King's absence the nation enjoyed 
a tranquillity unknown before in his reign, chiefly due 
to the influence of Bruce and his brethren. James 



68 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



Melville had good ground for what he said at the 
Assembly in August 1590 : 'We, and the graittest and 
best number of our flockes, halff bein, ar, and mon be 
his [the King's] best subjects, his strynthe, his honour. 
A guid minister (I speak it nocht arrogantlie, but 
according to the treuthe !) may do him mair guid 
service in a houre nor manie of his sacrilegious 
courteours in a yeir.' At the Queen's coronation the 
ministers took the chief part in the ceremony. It was 
Bruce who anointed her, and, with David Lindsay, 
minister of Leith, placed the crown on her head. 
Melville was chosen by the King to prepare and recite 
the Stephaniskion, as the coronation ode was called, 
and the King was so pleased with it that he gave him 
effusive thanks. On the following Sabbath James was 
present in St. Giles', and in the presence of the con- 
gregation acknowledged the services rendered by Bruce 
and the ministers to the country and the crown during 
his absence, and promised to turn a new leaf in the 
government of the kingdom. He was also present at 
the next General Assembly, when he broke forth in such 
fervent laudation of the Church that he might have 
made the oldest and staunchest adherents of Presbytery 
reproach themselves for the coldness of their own 
attachment to it : 4 He fell furth in praising God, that 
he was borne in suche a tyme as the tyme of the light of 
the Gospell, to suche a place as to be king in suche a 
Kirk, the sincerest Kirk in the world. "The Kirk of 
Geneva," said he, "keepeth Pasche and Yule; what 
have they for them ?— they have no institutioun. As for 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



69 



our nighbour Kirk in England, it is an evill said 
masse in English, wanting nothing but the liftings. 1 I 
charge you, my good people, ministers, doctors, elders, 
nobles, gentlemen, and barons, to stand to your puritie, 
and to exhort the people to doe the same ; and I 
forsuith, so long as I bruike my life and crowne, sail 
mainteane the same against all deidlie," etc. The 
Assemblie so rejoiced, that there was nothing but loud 
praising of God, and praying for the King for a quarter 
of an houre.' 2 

The entente cordiale between the King and the 
ministers was not of long duration. His promises of 
amended government were soon forgotten ; the law- 
lessness of the nobles continued unchecked; agents 
of Rome were again busy in the country in collusion 
with the Popish nobles, and nothing was done to 
counteract them. In these circumstances the ministers 
could not keep silence, and none of thern spoke more 
strongly against the laxity of the Government than 
Robert Bruce, the man the King had so recently and 
so specially honoured, who reproached James with 
the fact that during his absence in Denmark more 
reverence was paid to his shadow than had been 
shown since his return to his person. The outrages 
perpetrated by the King's illegitimate cousin, the mad- 
cap Bothwell, were largely laid to James's door, as the 
doings of a spoiled favourite of the Court : and the 
unpunished murder of the popular Earl of Moray, the 
'Bonnie Earl,' by Huntly — one of the worst crimes even 

1 Raising of the Host. 2 Caldenvood's History, v. 109. 



7o 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



of that lawless time, and of complicity in which the 
King himself was suspected — aggravated the discontent 
of the nation. 

It was at such a time of disorder and irritation in 
the country that the measure was passed by Parliament 
— the Act of 1592 — by which all previous legislation in 
favour of Episcopacy was swept off the statute-book and 
the Church re-established on the basis of the Second 
Book of Discipline. Had this Act been passed two 
years earlier, it might have been ascribed to the good- 
will of the King ; but in the circumstances in which it 
was brought forward, it was regarded as a piece of policy, 
adopted on the recommendation of the Chancellor for 
the purpose of recovering for the King the popularity 
he had lost during that interval, by the causes we have 
mentioned. 



CHAPTER VII 



THE POPISH LORDS — MELVILLE AND THE KING AT 
FALKLAND PALACE 

' The king he movit his bonnet to him, 
He ween'd he was a king as weel as he.' 

Johnie Armstrong. 

The end of the Church's troubles in Scotland was 
still far off. No sooner had the constitution of 1592, 
which promised to secure her peace and liberty, been 
set down in the statute-book, than the forces of 
reaction, headed by the Crown, began to work for the 
undoing of it; and the Church was to pass through 
a century of almost continuous struggle and of many 
and bitter disappointments — a century which had 
great part in the making of Scotland — before that 
constitution was finally ratified. 

The slackness of James towards the Popish agents, 
who had resumed their intrigues in the country, has 
been referred to. Those best informed in public 
affairs both in England and Scotland shared the 
indignation and alarm in the matter which were 
expressed by the ministers. One day, in the very 
year after the Armada, as James was in the Tolbooth 
with the Lords of Session, a packet was put into his 

71 



7 2 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



hands from the English Queen containing intercepted 
treasonable letters from the Popish lords in Scotland 
to the King of Spain and the Duke of Parma, and 
accompanied by the following letter in Elizabeth's own 
hand, in which she rates him for his fatuous lenity 
towards subjects who had joined hands with the 
enemies of his kingdom : — 

' My deere brother, — I have ere now assured you, that 
als long as I found you constant in amitie towards me, I 
would be your faithfull watche, to shunne all mishappes 
or dangers that, by assured intelligence, I might compasse 
to give you. And according to my good devotioun and 
affectioun, it hath pleased God to make me, of late, so 
fortunat as to have intercepted a messinger (whom I 
keepe safe for you), that carried letters of high treasoun to 
your persone and kingdome ; and can doe no lesse, than 
with most gladenesse, send you the discovered treasoun, 
suche as you may see, as in a glasse, the true portrature 
of my late wairning letters ; which, if then it had pleased 
you follow, als weill as read, you might have taiken their 
persons, receaved their treasoun, and shunned their 
further strenthening, which hath growne daylie by your 
too great neglecting and suffering of so manie practises 
which, at the beginning, might easilie have been pre- 
vented. 

'Permitt me, I pray you, my deere brother, to use 
als muche plainnesse as I beare you sinceritie, your 
supposing to deale moderatlie and indifferentlie to both 
factions, and not to take nor punishe, at the first, so 
notorious offenders, as suche as durst send to a forrane 
king for forces to land in your land under what pretence 
soever, without your special directioun, the same never 
punished ; but rather, holde foote deere and neere, with 
a parentage of neare allya. Good Lord ! me thinke 
I doe but dreame : no king a weeke would beare this ! 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



73 



Their forces assembled, and held neere your persoun, 
held plotts to take your persoun neere the seaside ; and 
that all this wrapped up with giving them offices, that 
they mighte the better accomplishe their treasoun ! These 
be not the formes of governments that my yeeres have 
experimented : I would yours had noucht, for I sweare 
unto you myne sould never in like sort. 

1 1 exhort you be not subject to such weaknesse, as to 
suffer such lewdnesse so long to roote, as all your strenth 
sail not plucke up (which God forbid !), which to shunne, 
after you have perused this great packet that I sent you, 
take speedie order lest you linger too long ; and take 
counsell of few, but of wise and trustie. For if they 
suspect your knowledge they will shunne your apprehen- 
sioun. Therefore of a suddantie they must be clapped 
up in safer custodie than some others have been, which 
hath bred their laughter. You see my follie when I am 
entered to matter that toucheth you so neere. I know 
not how to ende but with my prayers to God to guide you 
for your best. My agent with you sail tell you the rest. 

'Your most aproved loving sister and consignesse, 

'Elizabeth R.' 1 

An incident which occurred at the close of 1592, 
and which is known in our history as 'The Spanish 
Blanks,' brought to an acute crisis the suspicion and 
discontent of the country, and especially of the 
ministers. A Papist of the name of Kerr was about 
to embark on his ship, which was lying off Fairlie 
Roads on the Ayrshire coast, when he was arrested by 
a posse of Glasgow students and local gentry, with 
Knox the minister of Paisley at their head. In 
conversation with some of the people, Kerr had led 
them to suspect that he was bound for Spain as the 

1 Calderwood's History, v. 9. 



74 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



agent of some plot, and information to this effect was 
immediately communicated to the authorities in the 
neighbourhood, and among others to Knox. Only a 
month before, at the instance of Melville, the ministers 
had formed a vigilance committee to gather reports 
from every parish in the country of v any sinister 
movements on the part of the Papists, and to lay these 
before the Council, that steps might be taken at once 
to defeat them. Kerr's apprehension was a proof of 
the efficiency of this organisation. A search having 
been made, there were found in his possession, along 
with many treasonable letters, several sheets of paper 
containing no writing. They were addressed to the 
King of Spain, however, and bore the signatures and 
seals of the three chief Popish lords — Huntly, Angus, 
and Errol. Attached to these documents was a 
commission to a Jesuit named Crichton, to fill up the 
blanks, and in such a way — so it transpired afterwards 
— as to invite Philip to invade the country, and to 
pledge to him the support of these nobles. Kerr and 
an accomplice, Graham of Fintry, were brought before 
the Council and confessed the plot; and a few days 
after the arrest of Kerr, before the report of it had 
spread through the country, the Earl of Angus, having 
occasion to come to Edinburgh, was seized by the 
magistrates and confined in the Castle. 

The King was absent from the city at the time 
attending the marriage festivities of the Earl of Mar, 
and an urgent request was sent to him by the ministers 
of Edinburgh and his own Council to return and take 



ANDREW MELVILLE 75 

steps to bring the conspirators to justice, James, 
instead of thanking the ministers and councillors for 
their diligence in the matter, blamed them for their 
super-serviceableness, and so gave the impression that 
he was in sympathy with the plot. Kerr himself, in a 
letter to the King, went the length of saying that he 
and his friends had no doubt that they would have 
his countenance in their enterprise ; and Calderwood 
says : — 1 It appeareth the chief conspirators have had 
his [the King's] expresse or tacite consent, or at least 
have perceaved him inclyned that way, whereupon 
they have presumed.' Events confirmed the suspicion, 
if it wanted confirmation, of James's secret leanings 
to the party that had been guilty of treason. Only 
one of them — Graham, the most insignificant of their 
number — paid the penalty of his crime; Kerr and 
the Earl of Angus escaped from prison with the 
connivance of the authorities ; Huntly, who had been 
summoned to stand trial before the Privy Council, 
retired to his own territory and defied the Government, 
and it was only when he could no longer resist the 
popular will that the King took action against him. 
At the head of a considerable force, James set out to 
seize him ; but when the army reached Aberdeen it 
was found that the Earl had retired further north to 
the Caithness moors. The subsequent treatment of 
the rebel lords showed that the King had no heart in 
their prosecution — indeed, in an unguarded moment, 
while conversing with one of the few nobles who 
were reckoned friends of the Protestant cause, Lord 



7 6 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



Hamilton, he let out this fact. Had it not been for 
the pressure of the ministers, nothing would have been 
done. James trifled with the business : he scolded 
and coaxed the ministers in turn; he threatened 
them, and then gave way and promised to bring the 
offenders to trial, but still made no move ; he allowed 
the conspirators to appear in public and to have 
interviews with himself in which he made it apparent 
that they had little to fear at his hands ; he tampered 
with his own law officers in the traitors' interest ; and 
through his influence with Parliament they were 
virtually absolved and their forfeitures cancelled. But 
the ministers were stronger and far more really re- 
presentative of the nation than the Parliament— a fact 
which markedly characterises this long crucial period 
of Scottish history, and which must always be borne 
in mind for a right understanding of events. 

The two Melvilles took the lead in the Church's 
action. At the Synod of Fife, September 1593, 
excommunication was pronounced on the Popish 
lords ; and steps were taken to hold an early meeting 
in Edinburgh of commissioners from the counties to 
adopt such measures as would secure the ends of 
justice. At this convention, delegates were appointed 
to meet with the King and represent to him the 
necessity of taking vigorous action against the lords. 
The interview took place at Jedburgh, where the King 
had gone to repress some Border tumult. 'We war 
bot bauchlie 1 lukit upon,' says James Melville, who was 
1 Sorrily. 



ANDREW MELVILLE 77 

one of the delegates. — 'Our Assembly of Fife was 
bitterly inveyit against, namlie my uncle Mr. Andro 
and Mr. David Black.' Before the interview closed, 
the King became more gracious, and he dismissed the 
delegates with fair promises ; but his real answer 
was the subsequent passing through Parliament of an 
Act of Oblivion in favour of the lords, which he urged 
on the unkingly ground that, if severe measures were 
taken against them, they would go 'to armes and get 
forean assistance quhilk might wrack King, Country, 
and Relligion.' 

Parliament had given way to the King : but the 
ministers kept their ground. The Assembly of May 
1594 ratified the deed of the Synod of Fife in excom- 
municating the Popish lords, and appointed another 
commission to meet with the King and urge him in 
the matter, James Melville being again one of the 
delegates and their spokesman. The manner in which 
the King received them was very different from that 
in which he had received the deputation at Jedburgh, 
and surprised them by its friendliness. He expressed 
his regret at the misunderstandings that had arisen 
between himself and the Church, heard the statements 
of the delegates with apparent favour, and promised 
to summon Parliament for the earliest convenient day 
to take measures for the punishment of the excom- 
municated lords. At the close of the conference 
the King detained James Melville for a private 
interview, and sent through him a friendly message 
to his uncle, acknowledging both to be most faithful 



78 FAMOUS SCOTS 

and trusty subjects. From this time, for the space of 
two years, James Melville by the King's command 
went a great deal about the Court. 'Courting' did 
not go with his heart, but he was reconciled to it by 
the hope that he might be of service in bringing the 
King into better relations with the Church. The 
King's motive in inviting him to Court may be 
inferred from an incident which occurred one day 
when he had been conferring with the King on Church 
affairs. As Melville left the room the King was 
overheard saying to a courtier, 'I have streaked his 
mouth with cream.' James little knew the man, than 
whom there was not among his subjects one less likely 
to be seduced from his convictions by a king's flattery 
or favours. When the King found after a two years' 
trial that he was untamable, James Melville's ' Court- 
ing ' days ceased. 

The King's change of policy in the business con- 
cerned and his adoption of a more conciliatory attitude 
to the ministers are not difficult to explain. He had 
come to realise that they were too strong for him : 
they had the country with them, while towards him- 
self there was a universal feeling of suspicion and 
discontent. Moreover, the ministers had a strong 
ally in Queen Elizabeth, who continued to make angry 
remonstrances with James on his treatment of the rebel 
lords. In one stinging letter she said c she could only 
pray for him, and leave him to himself. She did not 
know whether sorrow or shame had the upper hand, 
when she had learned that he had let those escape 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



79 



against whom he had such evident proof. Lord ! what 
wonder grew in her that he should correct them with 
benefits and simply banished them to those they loved. 
She more than smiled to read their childish, foolish, 
witless excuses, turning their treasons' bills to artificers' 
reckonings, one billet lacking only, item, so much for 
the cord they best merited.' 1 

James dared not longer defy the feeling of the 
country, and accordingly Parliament was summoned 
in June 1594 and the trial of the Popish lords pro- 
ceeded with, the King professing the greatest zeal in 
it, and declaring that, as he had found c plaister and 
medicine' unavailing in dealing with the traitors, he 
would now 'use fire as the last remedie.' It fell to 
Parliament to choose those who composed the court in 
trials for treason — the Lords of the Articles they were 
called, — and some of those who were chosen on this 
occasion were notoriously tainted with treason them- 
selves. Melville, who was present in the Parliament 
as a commissioner of the Church, attended the opening 
of the court, and, addressing the King and the judges, 
admonished them to deal with the cause as the laws of 
the realm and the safety of the country required. 1 It 
is true/ he said, 'manie thinke it a mater of great 
weight to overthrow the estate of three so great men. 
I grant it is so : yitt it is a greater mater to overthrow 
and expell out of this countrie three farre greater ; to 
witt, true religioun, the quietnesse of the commoun 
weale, and the King's prosperous estat.' He then 

1 Cunningham's History, i. 424, 



8o 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



challenged the composition of the court: 4 "There come 
some heere to reasoun who have no interest, but ought 
to be excluded by all law," — meaning of the Pryour of 
Pluscardie, brother to the Lord Setoun, who was after 
made chanceller. Some answered, that he was a man 
of honorable place, President of the Sessioun. Mr. 
Andrew answered, more honorable were debarred 
from place among the Lords of the Articles. The 
King confessed it was true, and promised it sould be 
amended. "Nixt," said Mr. Andrew, "there are some 
on the Articles justlie suspected partiall, and almost als 
guiltie as the persons that are to be tryed." The Abbot 
of Inchaffrey and Mr. Edward Bruce sitting together 
laughed. The King asked at Mr. Andrew who it was 
that was suspected ? Mr. Andrew said, " One laughing 
there." Mr. Edward asked if he meant of him. Mr. 
Andrew answered, " If yee confesse your self guiltie, I 
will not purge you : but I meant of Inchaffrey there, 
beside you." The King sayeth to Mr. Edward, "That 
is Judas' questioun, £ Is it I, Maister ? ' " — whereat 
was muche laughter.' 

The forfeiture of the lords was agreed to, all but 
unanimously. But it was easier to pronounce this 
sentence than to execute it. Huntly, the chief traitor, 
defied the Government from his stronghold in the 
North, where he was all-powerful. The Crown had no 
standing army, and depended in military undertakings 
on the great feudal lords, one of the greatest of whom, 
Argyle, the potentate of the West Highlands, was ready 
to take the field against his rival, Huntly, in the North. 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



He invaded the Gordon district with a strong force, 
but was beaten by Huntly at Glenlivet. The Crown 
then raised an army of its own, by proclamation, and 
the King marched north with the force, accompanied 
on his own command by the two Melvilles, that their 
presence might be a pledge to the country of his sin- 
cerity and zeal in the business. On the army reaching 
Aberdeen, it was found that Huntly and his friends had 
again fled to Caithness, and it was resolved to go on to 
the district of the rebels and demolish their strongholds. 
The weather was so severe, however, that the army 
could not move out of Aberdeen for a whole month ; 
and by that time all the money the King had in hand 
for the expense of the war was exhausted, and it became 
necessary to raise more. The means he took to do 
this showed his estimate of the ministers' hold on the 
country. He sent James Melville south to enlist their 
services in procuring the money, and with him a letter 
in his own hand to the ministers of Edinburgh, whom he 
addressed as his ' trusty friends/ in which he made a 
fervent appeal to them to rouse the burgesses to do 
their duty in the matter, and declared that, rather than 
that there should be any miscarriage of justice, he 
would ' give crown, life, and all else God had put into 
his hands.' 

The King's message had been no sooner despatched 
than a difference of opinion arose among his advisers 
as to the course to be pursued with the rebels. A 
majority was in favour of taking no further action, 
while Melville vehemently urged that the army should 

F 



82 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



advance into Huntly's territory and overthrow his chiei 
stronghold, the castle of Strathbogie. The King 
could better afford to differ from the Council than from 
Melville, whose advice he adopted and at once put into 
execution ; and when the rebels heard of the destruction 
of Strathbogie, they believed that at last the King was 
serious in the business, and Huntly and his friends 
fled from the country in despair. 

This expedition took place in the fall of 1594. 
Before another year was over the King's attitude 
towards the Church was again hostile, or rather, his 
latent hostility began to be again evident and active. 
The removal from the Court of the Chancellor about 
this time, through an illness of which he soon died, 
so far accounts for the King's relapse in his relations 
with the ministers, as for some time Maitland's 
influence had been used in encouraging him to 
cultivate their friendship. 

In 1595, the King incurred one of those periodic ex- 
plosions of Melville's indignation, which were provoked 
by his own incurable distrust of the ministers, and his 
persistent effort to deprive them of liberty of speech in 
the pulpit. Mr. David Black of St. Andrews, one of 
the most zealous and honoured ministers of the Church, 
had made an enemy of Balfour of Burley, who has 
already been referred to in connection with outrages 
on citizens of St. Andrews. In revenge, Balfour raised 
calumnious charges against Black of disloyal utterances 
in the pulpit, and got them conveyed, through acquaint- 
ances among the courtiers, to the King's ears ; Melville, 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



83 



as his friend, and as having been the means of bringing 
him to the city, being also reported to the King as 
involved in his offences. The two were summoned to 
appear before the King and Council at Falkland to 
answer the accusations that had been made against 
them. While Black and his accusers were being 
heard, Melville, who had not been called, and who was 
determined that he would see justice done to his 
friend, knocking at the door, burst into the Council 
Chamber, 'and efter humble reverence done to the 
King, he braks out with grait libertie of speitche, 
letting the King planlie to knaw, that quhilk dyvers 
tymes befor, with small lyking, he haid tooned in his ear, 
"Thait thair was twa Kings in Scotland, twa King- 
domes, and twa Jurisdictiones : Thir was Chryst 
Jesus, etc. : And gif the King of Scotland, civil] King 
James the Saxt, haid anie judicator or cause thair, 
presentlie, it sould nocht be to judge the fathfull 
messangei of Jesus Chryst, the King, etc., bot (turning 
him to the Lard of Burley, standing there) this trator, 
wha hes committed divers poinets of hie treasone 
against his Majestie's civill lawes, to his grait dishonour 
and offence of his guid subjects, namlie, taking of his 
peacable subjects on the night out of thair housses, 
ravishing of weimen, and receating within his hous of 
the King's rebels and forfault enemies ! " 

1 With this, Burley falles down on his knees to the 
King, and craves justice. " Justice!" sayes Mr. 
Andro, "wald to God yow haid it! Yow wald nocht 
be heir to bring a judgment from Chryst upon the 



8 4 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



King, and thus falslie and unjustlie to vex and accuse 
the fathfull servants of God ! " The King began, with 
sum countenances and speitches, to command silence 
and dashe him ; bot he, insurging with graitter bauld- 
nes and force of langage, buir out the mater sa, that 
the King was fean to tak it upe betwix tham with 
gentill termes and mirrie talk; saying, "They war 
bathe litle men, and thair hart was at thair mouthe!"' 
Melville's boldness stopped the proceedings, and there 
and then the trial took end. 

We have now reached a period, 1596, just midway 
between the Reformation and the Covenant, when the 
Crown resumed its openly hostile policy towards the 
Church, laying upon her once more the heavy hand of 
oppression. From this date it pursued its object — the 
introduction of Episcopacy — more energetically than 
before. For the first decade of the renewed struggle it 
was strenuously opposed by the leaders of the Assembly; 
but thereafter, when the leaders had been silenced 
or banished, there was a free course for tyranny, and 
during the next fifty years the fortunes of the Church 
suffered an eclipse. To see the emergence we have to 
look ahead to 1632-1638, the period of the Covenant 
and the Glasgow Assembly, when there came that 
revival of the spirit of the Church which prepared her 
for her ultimate conflict and hard -won victory in 
1688. 

The cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, had already 
appeared on the horizon in the changed attitude of the 
King, which we have just noted ; but there was no one 



ANDREW MELVILLE 85 

able to foresee the storm it portended, which was to 
rage so long and so cruelly before the sky cleared 
again. 

James Melville speaks of 1596 as to be 'markitt for 
a special perriodic and fatall yeir to the Kirk of Scot- 
land/ and he enters on his narrative of it 'with a 
sorrowful heart and drouping eyes/ so 'doolful' was 
the decay it ushered in. The declension is not to be 
wondered at; for where has a Church been found in 
which such prolonged oppression as the Scottish Church 
had been subjected to, did not weary the patience and 
damp the zeal of all but the most resolved members 
of its Communion ? Had we been present at one of 
the diets of the Assembly, held in March of this 
'fatall 7 year, we should have witnessed a scene which 
might have been taken as an augury of good to the 
Church, rather than of evil. It was a day set apart 
for humiliation and the renewal of the Covenant, and 
no day had been seen like it, since the Reformation, 
in the spiritual fervour which was evoked. The ex- 
hortations of the preacher drew forth such sighs and 
sobs and weeping, that the House was turned into 
a Bochim; and when those present were asked to 
signify their entrance into a new covenant with God, 
the congregation rose en masse and held up their 
hands. Similar scenes took place in the Synods and 
Presbyteries to which the movement extended. ' I 
am certaine,' says James Melville, 6 by the experience 
found in my selff and maney others present in these 
meittinges, that the Assemblies of the saintes in Scotland 



86 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



wes nevir more beautiful and gloriouse by the manifold 
and mightie graces of the presence of the Holy Spirit.' 

This devotional diet of the Assembly was held as 
the prelude to a work of reformation in religion and 
morals on which the Church had set its heart, and 
which, beginning with the ministry, was to be sought 
also in the Parliament, in the Court, in the seats of 
justice, in every household, in all ranks and classes, 
from the King to the meanest of his subjects, to those 
who were in the highways and hedges, to the c pypers, 
fidlers, songsters, sorners, peasants, and beggars.' It 
was an exhaustive programme; and the ministers 
gave undeniable proofs of their sincerity by setting 
themselves to put their own house in order, and 
drawing up ordinances for sifting their own ranks 
and 'rypping' out their own ways. The scheme, as 
it applied to others, was too much of the nature of 
a magisterial inquisition for sin to do credit to its pro- 
moters' wisdom, if the ends they sought did honour to 
their hearts. No doubt, the condition of the country 
was such as to distress every good citizen and to make 
any remedy welcome. There was clamant need for 
reform in every department of the State. The adminis- 
tration of justice was, by its corruption and its ineffec- 
tiveness in the punishment of crime, a disgrace to the 
country. These were matters of public scandal, calling 
clearly for public agitation and reform ; but in matters 
of private and domestic life the ministers should have 
been content with exhortation and example as their 
means of reformation. A moral police proved then as 



ANDREW MELVILLE 87 

intolerable and ineffectual as it must always be. Our 
concern is to vindicate, not the absolute wisdom of 
Melville and the other ministers of that day, but their 
thoroughgoing and disinterested zeal for the purity 
and godliness of their nation, of which this scheme of 
reform is a signal proof. 

The movement of the Assembly was soon checked 
by fresh troubles in the State. It was well known that 
Philip had never ceased to chafe at the humiliation 
inflicted on him by the disastrous end of the Armada, 
and that he was burning for revenge. In January of 
this year James had issued a Proclamation in which 
he declared that the ambition of the King of Spain to 
make conquest of the Crown and Kingdom of England 
was manifest to all who had the least 'spunk of under- 
standing'; that to have such a neighbour settled on the 
borders of Scotland would be attended with the eminent 
hazard of civil and spiritual thraldom ; and that it was 
therefore necessary to unite all their force and concur 
with England in the defence of their ancient liberties 
and in preserving the isle from the tyranny of strangers. 
At the Assembly last held the King had been present, 
and had urged that contributions should be made from 
the whole realm for this purpose, when Melville rose 
and told him, with his usual plainness of speech, that if 
the estates of the Popish lords were applied, as they 
should be, to the defence of the country, no contribu- 
tions would be needed from the people. 

We can imagine the shock of alarm with which in 
these circumstances the nation heard that the Earl of 



88 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



Huntly and his associates had returned to Scotland, 
and the rising exasperation as it became evident that 
the King was disposed to let them settle down peaceably. 
Who could fathom the mind or trust the intentions of 
a King who roused the nation to resist Philip, while 
he at the same time harboured the faction that was 
prepared, when Philip appeared, to give him welcome ? 

A change had recently taken place in the personnel 
of the Government that did not tend to allay the appre- 
hensions which the return of the rebel lords awakened 
in the country. A Commission of eight had been 
appointed to manage the King's private property and 
the Crown estates; but though nominally only a 
Finance Committee, 'the Octavians/ as they were 
called, soon got the reins of government into their 
hands; and of this new Cabinet, 'one-half . . . war 
suspecte Papists, and the rest little better.' 

In August 1596 the Estates were summoned to 
meet in Falkland and consult what was to be done 
with the Popish lords. From the manner in which 
the meeting was called, it was evident that the King 
and his ministers had resolved to condone the crimes 
of Huntly and his allies, and to restore them to their 
honours and estates. The summons was confined to 
those members who were friendly to the lords, and 
to such of the ministers of the Church as might 
be expected to yield to the wishes of the Court. 
Melville, however, appeared with a commission from 
the Church which gave him authority to watch over 
its interests on all occasions on which they might be 



ANDREW MELVILLE 89 

in danger. When the King, before the sitting had 
begun, demanded the reason of his presence, and 
bade him go home, Melville answered that he must 
first discharge the commission intrusted to him by 
God and the Church. The session having opened, 
the King ordered that the members should take 
their seats as their names were called from the list. 
Melville, without his name being called, was among 
the first to enter, when the King's challenge gave 
him the opportunity he sought of delivering his soul : 
1 Sir, I have a calling to com heir be Chryst Jesus the 
King, and his Kirk, wha hes speciall entres in this 
tourn, 1 and against quhilks directlie this Conventioun 
is mett ; charging yow and your Esteattes in his nam, 
and of his Kirk, that yie favour nocht his enemies whom 
he hattes, nor go nocht about to call hame and mak 
citiciners, these that has traterouslie sought to betrey 
thair citie and native countrey to the crewall Spain- 
yard, with the overthrow of Chryst's Kingdome, fra the 
quhilk they have bein thairfor maist justlie cutt of as 
rotten members; certifeing, if they sould do in the 
contrair, they sould feill the dint of the wrathe of that 
King and his Esteattes ! } On the King interrupting 
him and commanding him to go out, Melville obeyed, 
thanking God that 'they haid knawin his mynd and 
gottin his message dischargit.' 

The business at this meeting of the Estates was all 
1 chewed meit.' The Resolutions were prepared by 
the King for a House packed with his nominees, and 

1 Interest in this business, 



90 FAMOUS SCOTS 

it was agreed to license the return of the lords and to 
receive their submission. 

In September the Commission of Assembly met at 
Cupar and appointed a deputation, consisting of the 
two Melvilles and other two ministers, to lay before 
the King their complaint regarding the decision of the 
Parliament, and to crave him to prevent it being carried 
into effect. The interview between Andrew Melville, 
the spokesman of the deputation, and King James 
at Falkland Palace is an event of which the memory 
will live in Scotland as long as it is a nation, and which 
ranks in moral dignity and dramatic interest with the 
greatest scenes in history. When did a subject ever 
use a manlier freedom with his Sovereign? When 
did mere titular kingship more plainly shrink into 
insignificance in presence of the moral majesty vested 
in the spirit of a true man ? No writer can afford to 
describe the scene in other words than those of James 
Melville : — 

* Mr. Andro Melvill, Patrik Galloway, James Nicolsone, 
and I, cam to Falkland, whar we fand the King verie 
quyet. The rest leyed upon me to be speaker, alleaging 
I could propone the mater substantiuslie, and in a myld 
and smothe maner, quhilk the King lyked best of. And, 
entering in the Cabinet with the King alan, I schew his 
Majestie, That the Commissionars of the Generall Assem- 
blie, with certean uther breithring ordeanit to watche 
for the weill of the Kirk in sa dangerous a tym, haid 
convenit at Cowper. At the quhilk word the King 
interrupts me and crabbotlie quarrels our meitting, 
alleaging it was without warrand and seditius, making 
our selves and the countrey to conceave feir whar was na 
cause. To the quhilk, I beginning to reply, in my maner, 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



9i 



Mr. Andro doucht nocht abyd it, bot brak af upon the 
King in sa zealus, powerfull, and unresistable a maner, 
that whowbeit the King used his authoritie in maist 
crabbit and colerik maner, yit Mr. Andro bure him down, 
and outtered the Commission as from the mightie God, 
calling the King bot "God's sillie vassall" ; and, taking 
him be the sleive, sayes this in effect, throw mikle hat 
reasoning and manie interruptiones : " Sir, we will 
humblie reverence your Majestie alwayes, namlie in 
publick, but sen we have this occasioun to be with your 
Majestie in privat, and the treuthe is yie ar brought in 
extream danger bathe of your lyff and croun, and with yow 
the countrey and Kirk of Chryst is lyk to wrak, for nocht 
telling yow the treuthe, and giffen of yow a fathfull 
counsall, we mon discharge our dewtie thairin, or els be 
trators bathe to Chryst and yow ! And, thairfor, sir, as 
divers tymes befor, sa now again, I mon tell yow, thair 
is twa Kings and twa kingdomes in Scotland. Thair is 
Chryst Jesus the King, and his kingdome the Kirk, whase 
subject King James the Saxt is, and of whase kingdome 
nocht a king nor a lord, nor a heid, bot a member ! 
. . . And, Sir, when yie war in your swadling-cloutes, 
Chryst Jesus rang 1 friely in this land in spyt of all his 
enemies. 55 ; 

The King bent before the tempest of Melville's 
indignation, and the storm ended in calm : the depu- 
tation was dismissed with the promise that the Popish 
lords would 1 get no grace at his hands till they satisfied 
the Kirk.' 

The ministers had learned what value to attach to 
the royal word, so that they cannot have been greatly 
surprised when soon afterwards James showed his 
intention not only to indemnify the excommunicated 
lords, but to restore them to favour at Court. At 
1 Reigned. 



92 FAMOUS SCOTS 

this time Huntly's Countess received a special mark 
of the King's favour in being invited to the baptismal 
ceremony of his daughter Elizabeth, and at the same 
time another Popish lady was put in custody of the 
Princess at the Court. 

The ultimate issue of this matter, which was soon 
involved in another and greater controversy between 
the Crown and the Church, was that the Popish lords, 
after a formal submission to the Courts of the Church, 
were absolved from their excommunication and re- 
stored to their former positions. No one believed 
that there was any sincerity in the transaction either 
on the part of Huntly and his friends, or of the King 
and Council, or of the majority of the Assembly: 
the whole business was concocted and pushed through 
by the Crown for its own ends, with as much of the 
semblance of concession to the Church as possible, 
and as little of the reality. The action of the Court 
throughout the whole case was such as to breed the 
greatest suspicion of the King's honesty in professing 
zeal for the defence of the country from the dangers 
threatened by Popish intrigues at home and abroad. 
Even Burton, whom no one will suspect of partiality 
to the Church, and whose animus against the ministers 
often overcomes his historic judgment, in writing of what 
he calls the ' edifying ceremony' of the absolution of the 
lords, says : ' It must be conceded to their enemies that 
it was a solemn farce ; and whatever there might be in 
words or the surface of things, there would be, when 
these Earls were restored, a power in the North ready 
to co-operate with any Spanish invader.' 



CHAPTER VIII 



THE KING'S GREEK GIFT TO THE CHURCH 

' The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, 
but war was in his heart.' 

The Psalms. 

In 1596, at one of the many conferences which he 
held with the Commissioners of the Church on the 
business with which our last chapter was concerned, 
the King disclosed a new policy. For the double 
purpose of diverting public attention from the Popish 
lords, and of starting a new process for the overthrow 
of Presbytery, he cast off all disguise and threw down 
the gauntlet to the ministers. He told the Commis- 
sioners that the question of the redding of the marches 
between the two jurisdictions must be reopened, and 
that there could be no peace between him and the 
Church until it satisfied him on these four points : — 
that ministers should make no reference in the pulpit 
to affairs of government ; that the Courts of the Church 
should take no cognisance of offences against the law 
of the land ; that the General Assembly should only 
meet by the King's special command ; and that the 
Acts of the Assembly should, no more than the 

93 



94 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



statutes of the realm, be held valid till they received 
his sanction and ratification. 

Had these demands been granted, the liberties of 
the Church would have been placed under the King's 
feet, the ministers would have worn a Court muzzle, 
and the Assembly would have sat only to register the 
King's decrees. With the pulpits silenced in regard 
to affairs of government and offences against the law, 
the country would have been deprived of the only 
organ of public opinion that checked the arbitrary 
power of the Crown and the prevailing laxity in the 
administration of justice. Had it not been for words 
of 'venturesome edge' spoken from the pulpits on 
necessary occasions, we cannot estimate how the 
liberties of Scotland would have suffered. We are 
told by some dispassionate and carefully balanced 
readers of Scottish History that the Presbyterian 
Reformers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
cared no more for liberty than did their opponents, 
and that the controversy was between Presbyterian 
tyranny on the one hand and Episcopal tyranny on 
the other; and, of course, it is to be allowed that 
individual liberty was neither claimed nor admitted 
by any party in that age, as it is by all parties in ours. 
But the Presbyterian Church was the nation in a sense 
which held true of no other organisation civil or 
ecclesiastical — certainly not of the aristocratic Parlia- 
ment,— and its courts and pulpits were the voice of 
the nation — the only articulate voice it had; so 
that in pleading for the rights and liberties of the 



ANDREW MELVILLE 95 

Church, in demanding for it free speech and effective 
influence in the nation's affairs, Melville and the 
Presbyterians were, from first to last, fighting for the 
rights and liberties of the people against the personal 
and injurious ambitions of the King and his courtiers. 
There can be no really historical understanding of the 
course of events in Scotland through the whole 
Reforming period except in the light of this truth — 
that the interests of Presbytery were dear to the best 
men in the country, from generation to generation, 
because they were the interests both of national 
righteousness and of national freedom. That the 
Church should be free to reform the nation, meant, 
practically, and in the only way possible, that the 
nation should be free to reform itself. Knox, Melville, 
and the Covenanters were the nobler sons of Wallace 
and Bruce, and fought out their battles. And this 
contest with James was a crucial illustration of the 
principles involved in the whole long struggle. 

On the very day the Commissioners were conferring 
with the King, it came out that Mr. David Black, 
minister of St. Andrews, had been summoned before 
the Council on a charge rising out of sermons he had 
preached. Black was accused, in the first instance, of 
having used language disrespectful to Queen Elizabeth. 
Bowes, the English Ambassador, had been wrought 
upon by one of the courtiers to make a complaint 
against Black on this score; and although the latter 
had made an explanation with which the Ambassador 
professed himself satisfied, the charge was persisted in. 



9 6 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



Black was further accused of having, on various 
occasions, made offensive references to the King and 
the Queen, and to others of high position in the land. 
The charges were based on sermons spread over two 
or three years, a circumstance which of itself suggests 
that the prosecution had been got up for ulterior 
government purposes ; that it was a * forged cavillation,' 
as Bruce called it in his pulpit in Edinburgh. 

Black denied all the charges, and declared that they 
had been concocted by well-known private enemies. 
When the Council resolved to go on with the prose- 
cution, Black, on the advice of the Commissioners 
of the Church, declined its jurisdiction. The Council 
went on with the trial — Black taking no part in it, — 
found the charges proven, and sentenced him to go 
into ward beyond the North Water (the North Esk). 
The same week, the Commissioners of Assembly who 
had come to Edinburgh to watch the trial were 
ordered to quit the capital, along with many of their 
leading supporters among the citizens, within twenty- 
four hours ; and a Proclamation was issued containing 
a vehement attack on the ministers, and reviving one 
of the provisions of the Black Acts, which prohibited all 
preachers from censuring the conduct of the Govern- 
ment or any of ' the loveabill (!) 1 Acts of Parliament, 
required all magistrates to take measures against any 
who should be found so doing, and made it a crime 
to hear such speeches without reporting them to the 
authorities. This Proclamation left the country in no 
doubt as to the character of the King's policy towards 



ANDREW MELVILLE 97 

the Church; for never had ever: James asserted his 
claims tc absolute authority, alike in rival and ecclesias- 
tical affairs, more arrogantly. Ir declared that the royal 
pc~er was above all the estates, spiritual as well as 
temporal ; and that the King was judge of speeches of 
whatever quality, uttered in the pulpit. 

The citizens of Edinburgh were naturally thrown 
into violent commotion by these events ; and when 
their minds were in this inflammable condition, an 
incident recurred which brought tne public excitement 
to its height, and which the Government turned to its 
own account in prosecuting its quarrel with the Church 
with still greater vigour. This incident is known as 
'the Riot of 17th December* (1596). On that day a 
number of the ministers and of the nobles who were in 
sympathy with them, were assembled for consultation in 
one of the chapels of St, Giles", known as tne ; Little 
Church,' when they were startled by some one near 
the door raising the shout, 'Fy! save yourselves.'' or, 
as another version gives it, 4 The Papists are in arms 
to take the town and cut all your throats.' The 
Assembly at once broke up, and all made for the street 
The alarm spread through the city, and soon brought 
the pecple in crowds tc the High Street, many 0: them 
armed : and it is said that some of them surrounded 
the Tolbooth, where the King was sitting at the time 
with the Council, crying to 'bring out Hainan,' and 
shouting, 'The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.' 
On hearing of the tumult, the Provost and the ministers 
of the city made for the scene, and through their 

G 



9 8 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



exertions peace was restored within an hour, and 
without any one being hurt. 

The man who raised the panic in the ' Little Church ' 
never came to be known; but it was believed that 
he was one of the ' Cubiculars ' (as they were called), 
or gentlemen of the King's bedchamber, who were 
annoyed at the Octavians, on account of the retrench- 
ments made in the King's household expenditure ; 
and that this ruse had been devised for the purpose 
of fomenting the differences between the Octavians 
and the ministers. 

The action taken by the Court in connection with 
the riot would have been ridiculous had its con- 
sequences for the Church not been so serious. Next 
day the King removed the Court to Linlithgow, and a 
Proclamation was made at the Cross of Edinburgh 
announcing that, owing to the * treasonable ' arming of 
the citizens, the Courts of Law would also be removed 
from the city, and ordering the four ministers and 
several prominent citizens of Edinburgh into ward in 
the Castle, and citing them before the Council on a 
general charge. The ministers fled, as Melville and 
others had done in like circumstances twelve years 
before. 

In January 1597 the King returned to the capital, 
and the Estates were called together to confirm the 
Acts passed by the Council for punishing all whom it 
chose to hold in blame for the riot of the previous 
month. In accordance with these Acts, all ministers 
were to be required, on pain of losing their stipends, to 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



99 



subscribe a bond acknowledging the King to be the 
only judge of those charged with using treasonable 
language in the pulpit ; authorising magistrates to 
apprehend any preachers who might be found so 
doing, and declaring the King to have the power of 
discharging ministers at his pleasure. Vindictive Acts 
against the city of Edinburgh were also confirmed. 
Henceforth no General Assembly was to be held 
within its walls ; the seat of the Presbytery was to be 
transferred to Musselburgh or Dalkeith ; the manses of 
the city ministers were to be forfeit to the Crown ; these 
ministers were not to be readmitted to their pulpits, 
nor any others chosen in their places without his 
Majesty's consent : and no magistrates, any more than 
ministers, were to be appointed without the royal 
approval. 

At the same meeting of the Estates, arrangements 
were made for the restoration of the Popish lords. 
The contrast between the King's leniency towards them, 
and his rigorous and vindictive measures towards the 
ministers, plainly advertised the disposition of the King 
to both. Well might Robert Bruce ask in one of his 
sermons — 'What sail the religius of both countries 
think of this? Is this the moyen to advance the 
Prince's grandeur and to turne the hearts of the 
people towards his Hienesse? 3 Spirited protests 
were made by the Commissioners of the Church; 
they did not mince their language — 1 We deteast that 
Act , . . making the King head of the Kirk ... as 
High Treason and sacriledge against Christ the onlie 



100 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



King and Head of the Kirk/ The magistrates did 
not show the same mettle, but made submission on 
all the points required. 

Emboldened by the effect of these measures, the 
King lost no time in pressing forward his designs 
against the Church. His next step was to issue a 
state paper containing a long series of questions which 
should reopen discussion on the established policy, and 
convening a meeting of the representatives of the 
Church and of the Estates for the purpose of debating 
and deciding on these questions. The ministers at 
once began preparations for the struggle; and it was 
Melville's Synod — always the Church's pilot in the 
storm — that once more took the lead. It appointed 
Commissioners to urge the King to abandon the pro- 
posed Convention, and to refer the business to a 
regular meeting of Assembly. Should the King 
refuse this request, the Commissioners were not to ac- 
knowledge the Convention as a lawful meeting of 
the Assembly, nor to admit its claim to enter on the 
Constitution of the Church. In any private discussion 
they were strenuously to oppose any movement on the 
part of the King to disturb the existing order. 

The Convention met in Perth on the last day of 
February 1597. In anticipation, the King, knowing 
well the determined opposition he would encounter 
at the hands of those ministers who regularly attended 
the Assembly and took part in its business, had de- 
spatched one of his courtiers, Sir Patrick Murray, to do 
the part of 4 Whip 9 among the ministers north of the Tay, 



ANDREW MELVILLE 101 



and so to pack the Assembly with members who rarely 
attended it, who were unaccustomed to its business, and 
who were more likely to be facile for the King's pur- 
poses than their brethren in the south. Murray — 6 the 
Apostle of the North,' as he was sarcastically called 
— brought the Highland ministers down in droves, 
poisoned their minds with jealousy of the southern 
ministers, and flattered them with the assurance of the 
King's esteem. 

After a debate, lasting for three days, the majority 
agreed to hold the Convention as a meeting of the 
Assembly. Thereafter the King's questions were 
entered upon, and so far discussed, when the business 
was adjourned to another meeting to be held in 
Dundee. In agreeing to recognise the Convention 
as an Assembly, and to open up the subject of its own 
constitution, the Church came down from its only safe 
position, and virtually delivered itself into the King's 
hands, thereby inflicting a wound on its own liberties, 
from which it took a whole century to recover. That 
surrender was the letting in of waters, and henceforth 
the Assemblies were the organ of the Crown rather 
than of the Church — 'Whar Chryst gydit befor, the 
Court began then to govern all ; whar pretching befor 
prevalit, then polecie tuk the place ; and, finalie, whar 
devotioun and halie behaviour honoured the Minister, 
then began pranking at the chare, and prattling in the 
ear of the Prince, to mak the Minister to think him 
selff a man of estimatioun ! . . . The end of the 
Assemblies of auld was, whow Chryst's Kingdome 



102 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



might stand in halines and friedome : now, it is 
whow Kirk and Relligioun may be framed to the 
polytic esteat of a frie Monarchic, and to advance 
and promot the grandour of man, and supream 
absolut authoritie in all causes, and over all persones, 
alsweill Ecclesiasticall as Civill.' 

The Dundee Assembly met in May; again the 
northern ministers were present in force ; and again 
every means the Court could contrive was used to win 
over the members, and especially those of mark among 
them. Melville came to attend the Assembly ; and one 
evening before it met, Sir Patrick Murray sent for the 
younger Melville, and urged him to advise his uncle to 
go home, as, if he did not, the King would order him to 
be removed. On receiving the answer that it would be 
useless to give Melville such advice, since the threat of 
death would not turn him from his duty, Sir Patrick re- 
joined, * Surely I fear he suffer the dint of the King's 
wrath.' James Melville told his uncle of the interview 
with the King's ' Whip.' What his uncle's answer was, 
'I need not wraite,' he says. On the morning of the 
Assembly the Melvilles were summoned by the King. 
The interview went on smoothly till they entered on 
the business for which the Assembly was called, when 
'Mr. Andro brak out with his wounted humor of 
fredome and zeall and ther they heeled on, till all 
the hous, and clos bathe, hard mikle of a large houre.' 
Melville was much too stormy a courtier for the King's 
purposes. 

At the Dundee Assembly, the transactions at the 



ANDREW MELVILLE 103 



Perth Convention were confirmed ; and thereafter a 
new proposal was made by the King and carried, which 
was fraught with evil for the Church. This was the 
appointment of an extraordinary standing Commission 
to confer with the King on the Church's affairs — a 
Commission which came to be a kind of King's Council 
set up in the Assembly. Calderwood speaks of it as 
the King's 1 led horse,' and James Melville calls it * the 
very neidle to draw in the Episcopall threid.' 

Armed with his new provisions, the King immediately 
began to use them with energy. Edinburgh and St. 
Andrews were the strongholds of the Church, where 
the Invincibles in its ministry were chiefly found. The 
ministers of the former had already been disposed of, 
and the King's next move was directed against those 
of the latter — above all, against Melville, the chief In- 
vincible. The two leading ministers of St. Andrews, 
Black and Wallace, were discharged; George Gled- 
stanes, who afterwards became a Bishop, being ap- 
pointed in Black's place ; and Melville was deprived of 
the Rectorship of the University. At the same time, 
a law was enacted depriving professors of their seats 
in Church Courts, the object being, of course, to 
exclude Melville, whose influence in the Courts was 
so commanding. 

At the end of this year another step was taken 
towards the re-erection of Episcopacy. The Commis- 
sioners of Assembly, who were now mere creatures of 
the King, appeared before Parliament, petitioning it to 
give the Church the right of representation, so as to 



104 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



restore it to its former position as the Third Estate of 
the realm ; proposing also, that for this end the prelatic 
order should be revived, and the Bishops chosen as 
the Church's representatives. The jurisdiction of the 
prelates within the Church was to be left over for 
future consideration, in accordance with James's policy, 
which was not to filch so much of the Church's liberty 
at any one time as might frustrate his hope of taking 
it all away in the end. The petition of the Commis- 
sioners was granted by the Parliament. 

In February of the following year, 1598, the Synod 
of Fife met, Sir Patrick Murray being present as the 
King's Commissioner ; and the Court at once entered 
on the question of the hour, Should the Church agree 
to send representatives to Parliament ? James Melville, 
who was the first to rise and address the House, pro- 
tested against their falling to work to 'big up' bishops, 
whom all their days they had been 'dinging doun.' 
Andrew Melville followed, and supported his nephew's 
counsel in his own vehement manner. David Ferguson, 
the oldest minister of the Church, who had been at 
its planting in 1560, rose, and warned the House of 
the fatal gift that was offered by the King. John 
Davidson, another venerable and influential member 
of the Synod, made a powerful speech, concluding with 
the same warning : 4 Busk, busk, busk him as bonnilie 
as ye can, and fetche him in als fearlie as yie will, we 
sie him weill aneuche, we sie the horns of his mytre.' 
When the Synod met, the majority were inclined to 
favour the proposal ; but these speeches, greatly to the 



ANDREW MELVILLE 105 



chagrin of the Royal Commissioner, turned the feeling 
of the House. 

The same business occupied the next Assembly, 
which met in Dundee in March. Melville having 
come to the Assembly in defiance of the recent Act 
depriving him of his seat, the King challenged his 
commission in the Court. Melville replied with great 
spirit ; and before he was discharged, delivered his views 
on the King's policy. John Davidson boldly defended 
his leader's right to sit in the Assembly, and, turning to 
the King, told him that he had his seat there as a Chris- 
tian man, and not as President of the Court. Next day 
Davidson complained again of the treatment Melville 
had received, openly ascribing it to the King's fear of 
his opposition. 'I will not hear a word on that head,' 
James burst forth. — 1 Then,' said Davidson, £ we must 
crave help of Him that will hear us.' Not only was 
Melville excluded from the Assembly, but its business 
was not allowed to proceed till he left the town, lest 
he should stiffen the brethren who resorted to him 
for advice against the King's proposals. The royal 
measures were, after all, only carried by ten votes ; and 
even that majority would not have been secured had 
the King not declared, with his usual disingenuousness, 
that he had no intention of restoring the bishops as 
a spiritual order, but only as representatives of the 
Church in Parliament. 

It was decided that the number of representatives 
should correspond with that of the old prelates, and 
that they should be chosen conjointly by the 



io6 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



King and the Assembly. When, however, the 
House proceeded to details, so much difference of 
opinion arose, that the King thought it prudent to 
adjourn. The questions were referred to the inferior 
Courts for their consideration, and thereafter each Synod 
was to appoint three commissioners to confer on the 
subject before the King along with all the theological 
professors. 

This conference was held, and was packed with the 
King's men. In many cases the delegates were not 
the choice of those they represented. The trick by 
which this was effected was in keeping with the rest of 
the King's conduct in the business. In many of the 
presbyteries the Invincibles were placed upon the leets 
from which the commissioners were to be elected; 
they thus lost their votes, and those who remained to 
make the choice chose the delegates desired by the 
King. 

Melville attended the conference, and opposed the 
King at every point. On the question of the duration 
of the office of the representatives, there was a very 
lively piece of repartee between the two. Melville had 
been contending that the King's proposal to appoint 
the representatives for life would establish lordship over 
the brethren, 'tyme strynthning opinioun and custome 
confirming conceat/ when the King broke in upon his 
speech with the remark that 'there was na thing sa 
guid bot might be bathe ill suspected and abbusit, and 
sa we suld be content with na thing/ Melville retorted 
that they c doubted of the guidness, and had ower just 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



107 



cause to suspect the evill of it.' The King's next 
thrust was : 1 There was na fault bot we [the ministers] 
war all trew aneuche to the craft/ which Melville turned 
with the remark, 'But God make us all trew aneuche 
to Christ say we.' — 4 The ministers/ said the King, 
1 sould ly in contempt and povertie [if their status was 
not raised as he proposed]. — t It was their Maister's 
case before them/ rejoined Melville ; ' it may serve them 
weill aneuche to be as he was, and better povertie with 
sinceritie nor promotioun with corruptioun/ — 1 Uthers 
would be promovit to that room in Parliament/ said 
the King [his Majesty could not want his three estates], 
e wha wald opres and wrak his Kirk.' — Melville 
answered : 1 Let Chryst the King and advenger of the 
wrangs done to his Kirk and them deal togidder as he 
hes done before; let see wha gettes the warst.' — Once 
more the King argued : 1 Men wald be that way [by a 
temporary appointment] disgraced, now sett upe and 
now sett by and cast down and sa discouragit from 
doing guid/ when Melville concluded : 'He that thinks 
it disgrace to be employed in what God's Kirk thinks 
guid, hes lytle grace in him ; for grace is given to the 
lowlie.' 

Another point was the name to be given to the 
representatives. Arguing against the King's proposal 
to style them bishops, Melville used great freedom of 
speech : c The nam Ittlv kotos being a Scripture nam, 
might be giffen tham, provyding, that because ther was 
sum thing mair put to the mater of a Bischope's office 
then the Word of God could permit, it sould have a 



io8 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



lytle eik 1 put to the nam quhilk the Word of God 
joyned to it, and sa it war best to baptize tham 
with the nam that Peter i. cap. iy. giffes to sic 
lyk officers, calling tham dXXorpio^Tno-KOTrovs, war 
nocht they wald think scham to be merschallit with 
sic as Peter speakes of ther, viz., murderers, theiffs, 
and malefactors ? ' Melville was much pleased with his 
own wit : ' Verilie that gossop [this was Andro] at the 
baptisme (gif sa that I dar play with that word) was no 
a little vokie 2 for getting of the bern's name.' We 
hardly understand Melville unless we take into account 
the spirit almost of glee with which he fought 1 the 
good fight 1 ; he was c always a fighter,' not purely from 
stress of circumstances, but because he had it in him ; 
he was never quarrelsome, and he needed a high issue 
to rouse him — but that given, he sniffed the battle 
from far, and dearly loved to be in the thick of it. 

The questions were then left to be disposed of by 
the General Assembly, the King warning the members 
of the conference before it broke up that, whatever 
the Assembly might do, he would have his Third Estate 
restored. 

By this time the country had learned, by the pub- 
lication of the King's two books — The True Law of 
Free Monarchy and the Basilicon Doron — that James's 
practice in the government of the nation and in 
his policy towards the Church was in accordance with 
his theory of kingship. By a ' Free Monarchy ' he- 
meant, not a monarchy in which the people are free, 
1 Addition. 2 Vain. 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



but in which the King is free from all control of the 
people. He claimed that the King was above the law r ; 
and that 1 as it is atheism and blasphemy to dispute 
what God can do, so it is presumption and a high con- 
tempt in a subject to dispute what a King can do, or to 
say that a King cannot do this or that.' 

In the Basilicon Doron he unveiled his real feelings 
and designs with regard to Presbytery, which, at the 
very time he was writing, he was professing to respect 
— declaring that the ruling of the Kirk was no small 
part of the King's office ; that parity among the minis- 
ters could not agree with a monarchy ; that Puritans 
were pests in the Kirk and commonwealth of Scotland, 
and that bishops must be set up. 

The General Assembly met in Montrose in March 
1600; and Melville, who had come to the town to attend 
it, was commanded by the King to keep to his room. 
Summoned to his Majesty's presence, he was asked why 
he was giving trouble in attending the Assembly after 
the Act depriving him of his seat ; when he replied : 
1 He had a calling in his Kirk of God and of Jesus 
Christ, the King of Kings, quhilk he behovit to dis- 
charge at all occasiounes, being orderlie callit thereto, 
as he wes at this time ; and that for feir of a grytter 
punischment then could any earthly king inflict.' The 
King in anger uttered a threat, w T hen Melville, putting 
his hand to his head, said : ' Sir, it is this that ye would 
haiff. Ye sail haiff it : Tak it ! Tak it ! or ye bereave 
us of the liberties of Jesus Christ and His kingdome.' 

Excluded from the Assembly, Melville remained in 



no 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



Montrose during the sittings, to assist his brethren with 
his counsel. The King was present at every sitting, 
and was busy from early morning till late at night 
canvassing the members of the House ; and though 
there were many who stood honestly by their prin- 
ciples, his authority and diplomacy carried the day. 
The House was so far from being favourable to the 
King's scheme, that it would have thrown it out, but for 
his arbitrary closure of the debate ; it did throw out the 
proposal of life representatives ; and it safeguarded the 
other clauses of the measure with so many caveats^ that 
had they been observed, it could not have served for 
the restoration of the bishops. These caveats^ however, 
were not observed ; then, as many a time before and 
since in Scotland, the Church got the worst of the 
bargain in seeking a compromise with the civil power, 
and found too late that she had sold her birthright. 
In less than a month after the Assembly rose, three of 
the ministers had been appointed to bishoprics, and 
these ministers took their seats in the next Parliament. 

We have seen that James, whenever he felt that the 
tide of hostile opinion in the country was becoming too 
strong for him, sought to turn it by some popular act. 
The General Assembly held in Burntisland in May 
1 60 1 witnessed one of those periodic fits of apparent 
yielding, on the King's part, to the will of the nation. 
He was in peculiar disfavour at the time, owing to the 
mysterious tragedy which took place at Gowrie House 
in August 1600. There was a widespread, deep- 
rooted suspicion that the Earl of that name, who was a 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



favourite of the people, and the head of a Protestant 
house, had been the victim rather than the author of 
the conspiracy; and the public irritation was increased 
by the new quarrel which James forced on Bruce and 
the other ministers of Edinburgh for refusing to repeat, 
in the thanksgiving service appointed to be held for his 
preservation, his own version of the story. At the 
Burntisland Assembly the King appeared and made 
humble confession of the shortcomings of his Govern- 
ment, especially in respect of his indulgence of the 
Papists, and gave lavish promises of amendment. 

Two years afterwards, before leaving Scotland to 
ascend the English throne, these promises were 
renewed ; but, as usual with James, they were only the 
prelude of greater oppression. His threat to the Puritan 
ministers at Hampton Court conference — that he would 
1 harry them out of the country 1 — left their brethren of 
the Scottish Church in no doubt as to the course he 
would pursue towards themselves, now that he had 
attained to a position of so much greater authority. 

The Assembly was the palladium of the Church's 
liberty \ and the policy which the King had begun before 
leaving Scotland, of usurping the government of the 
Church by gaining the control of the Assembly, was 
vigorously prosecuted after his accession to the throne 
of England. The meetings were prorogued again and 
again by royal authority, but always under protest from 
the most independent of the ministers. For their zeal 
in promoting a petition to him on the subject, the King 
ordered the two Melvilles to be imprisoned \ but the 



112 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



Scottish Council dared not lay hands on them in view 
of the unpopularity of the Government. In the year 
1605 the quarrel between the King and the ministers 
over the right of free Assembly came to a head. A 
meeting appointed to be held in Aberdeen had been 
prorogued by the King's authority for a second time, 
and prorogued sine die. The ministers felt that if they 
acquiesced in so grave a violation of the law of the 
Church, her liberty would be irrecoverably lost ; several 
of the Presbyteries accordingly resolved to send repre- 
sentatives to Aberdeen to hold the Assembly in defiance 
of the King's prohibition. This was done, and the 
House had no sooner been constituted than a King's 
messenger appeared and commanded the members to 
disperse; whereupon the Moderator dissolved the 
Assembly and fixed a day for its next meeting. The 
law-officers of the Crown were immediately instructed to 
prosecute the ministers who had attended, and fourteen 
of them were tried and sentenced to imprisonment — 
two of them, Forbes the Moderator and John Welch, 
Knox's son-in-law, being sent to Blackness. Six of them 
having declined the jurisdiction of the Council, were 
tried for high treason by a packed jury, and found 
guilty by a majority. So great was the indignation felt 
throughout the country at the prosecution and the man- 
ner in which it had been conducted, that the Council 
had to inform the King that the Court could not go 
on with the trial of the others. Eight of the condemned 
ministers were banished to the Highlands and Islands; 
and the six who had been found guilty of treason were 



ANDREW MELVILLE 113 



sent to Blackness and then banished to France. In 
all the proceedings against those who had made such 
a manly stand in defence of the Church's liberties, 
Melville identified himself with his brethren, did all 
that was in his power to procure their acquittal, and 
after their sentence visited them in prison. 

The King now took another step in his campaign 
against Presbytery. He ordered all the synods of the 
Church to meet, in order to have articles submitted to 
them which provided that the bishops should have full 
jurisdiction over the ministers, under his Majesty, and 
that the King should be acknowledged supreme ruler of 
the Church under Christ. These articles were rejected 
by Melville's synod, and referred to the Assembly by 
the others. A meeting of Parliament was summoned to 
pass the articles into law, and to this Parliament Mel- 
ville was sent by his presbytery to watch over the 
interests of the Church. It having been ascertained 
that it was the King's intention to propose that the 
statute of the year 1587, annexing the temporalities of 
the prelates to the Crown, should be repealed, and that 
the bishops should be restored to their ancient pre- 
rogatives and dignities, the ministers lodged a protest 
beforehand, with Melville's name at the head of the 
signatories ; and when the measure came to be adopted 
by Parliament, and Melville rose up to renew his pro- 
test, he was commanded to leave the House, * quhilk 
nevertheless he did not, till he had maid all that saw 
and heard him understand his purpose.' Melville 
seldom failed in any circumstances to make those who 

H 



H4 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



saw and heard him understand his purpose, and when 
that was done his end was served. 

Among the writings issued at this time against the 
King's measure, there was one in which it was said of 
bishops in general, that 6 for one preaching made to the 
people [they] ryde fourtie posts to court ; and for a 
thought or word bestowed for the weal of anie soule 
care an hundreth for their apparrill, their train . . . 
and goucked gloriosity.' 1 The part taken by the bishops 
at the opening of this Parliament showed that the new 
Scottish prelates were likely to verify this indictment 
against their order. s The first day of the Ryding in 
Parliament betwix the Erles and the Lords raid the 
Bischopes, all in silk and velvet fuit-mantelles, by 
paires, tuo and tuo, and Saint Androis, the great 
Metropolitanne, alone by him selff, and ane of the 
Ministeres of no small quantitie, named Arthur Futhey, 
with his capp at his knie, walkit at his stirrope alongst 
the streit. But the second day, for not haiffing 
their awen place as the Papist Bisschoppis of auld had, 
unto quhois place and dignitie they wer now restorit 
fully in judgment, quhilk wes befoir the Erles, nixt eftir 
the Marquesses, thai would not ryde at all, but went to 
the House of Parliament quyetlie on fuit. This maid 
the Nobillmen to take up thair presumeing honour, 
and detest thame, as soon as they had maid thame and 
sett thame up, perceiving that thair upelyfting wes thair 
awin douncasting.' 

The Parliament had restored Episcopacy, but the 

1 Foolish pomp. 



ANDREW MELVILLE 115 

Assembly had not yet wholly succumbed. To secure 
this end, and so to give to what was entirely his own 
despotic act the appearance of a change desired by the 
Church itself, was the King's next aim. And this opens 
up one of the most disgraceful chapters in the history 
of James's relations with the Scottish Church. 



CHAPTER IX 



MELVILLE AT HAMPTON COURT 

• But who, if he be called upon to face 
Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined 
Great issues, good or bad, for human kind, 
Is happy as a lover.' 

The Happy Warrior. 

A month before the meeting of the Perth Parliament, 
viz. in May 1606, Melville and his nephew, together 
with other six ministers, received a letter from the 
King, commanding them to go to London to confer 
with him on the affairs of the Church. The letter was 
very vaguely worded ; but it was apparent that James's 
purpose was either to secure their capitulation to 
Episcopacy, or to deprive them of all further oppor- 
tunity of resisting it. The ministers were much per- 
plexed as to whether they should go or stay, but at 
last they decided to face all risks and obey the King's 
summons. 

On reaching London at the end of August (1606), 
they got a warm welcome from many ministers in the 
city who were friendly to their cause. They were 
offered hospitality by their Graces of Canterbury and 
York, but they declined a meeting with these prelates till 

116 



ANDREW MELVILLE 117 

they had seen the King. They soon learned that the 
King's object in bringing them to London was that 
they might be set to the public discussion of the 
affairs of the Church. This the ministers, for many 
good reasons, were resolved not to do : they could be 
no parties to any proceedings which brought into 
question the Church's discipline, and they had no 
warrant for taking part in such proceedings. With 
whom were they to hold debate? The English 
prelates could find within their own Church those 
who would take them up in regard to the merits of 
their ecclesiastical system : and the two Scottish arch- 
bishops who had come to London to be present 
at the conference between the King and the eight 
brethren, could not open their mouths against Presby- 
tery, as the ministers had brought with them docu- 
ments, in which these prelates had bound themselves 
to maintain the established constitution of the Presby- 
terian Church. 

The ministers were nearly a month in London 
before they met the King, who had been making a 
tour in England. The first interview between them 
took place at Hampton Court on 20th September. 
The King was in good humour, and very familiar ; he 
bantered James Balfour on the length to which his 
beard had grown since they last met in Edinburgh, 
and was gracious all round. 

Next day was the Sabbath, when they were all 
enjoined by the King to attend a service in the Royal 
Chapel, to be conducted by Dr. Barlow, Bishop of 



n8 FAMOUS SCOTS 

Rochester. They had been brought to London to be 
schooled into conformity ; and as part of the process, 
the English bishops had been commanded to prepare 
a series of sermons for their benefit. These were 
such a travesty on the texts of Scripture they were 
supposed to expound, that if they had been addressed 
to the ministers' own congregations in Scotland, the 
humblest of their hearers would have resented them. 
Whatever these bishops could do, they certainly could 
not preach. They belonged to that section of the 
clergy who disparage the preacher's function in com- 
parison with the priest's, and who in their own practice 
do a great deal to bring the former into something like 
contempt. If the sermons preached before the eight 
brethren did not convince or edify them, they at least 
amused them, and gave them practice in the Christian 
virtue of patience. Dr. Barlow's was not the worst, 
though his hearers regarded it as an admirable * confuta- 
tion ' of the text. The preacher, among the four, who 
reached the climax of absurdity was Dr. Andrewes, 
Bishop of Chichester. He was one of the extreme 
High Churchmen of his time : no man urged the 
doctrine of passive obedience to a more abject degree, 
or did more to support with the sanction of religion 
the most extravagant pretensions of the Crown. It 
was Andrewes who at the Hampton Court Conference 
declared that James was inspired by God — the same 
man who made it his nightly prayer, as he tells us 
himself, that he might be preserved from adulating the 
King ! Of all the sermons preached to, or rather at % 



ANDREW MELVILLE 119 

the eight brethren, his, as we have said, was the most 
preposterous, consisting as it did of a deduction of the 
King's right to call Assemblies of the Church, from 
the passage in Numbers which describes the blowing 
of the trumpets by the sons of Aaron to summon the 
congregation to the tabernacle ! Well might a Scottish 
lord, who heard Andrewes preach before the Court on 
the occasion of James's visit to Scotland in 1617, say of 
him as he did, when asked his opinion by the King, 
that he played with his text rather than preached upon 
it. The last of the series of the discourses was the 
most candid, and pointed most directly to the object at 
which they were all aiming ; for the preacher reached 
the close of the attack upon the Presbyterians by 
turning round to the King and exclaiming, i Downe, 
downe with them all ! ' 

On Monday, 22nd September, the ministers were 
brought to confer with the King in presence of the 
Scottish Council. Two points for discussion came up : 
First, the proceedings of the Aberdeen Assembly ; and, 
second, the proposed holding of an Assembly in which 
order and peace might be restored to the Church. 
James Melville spoke for the brethren with great 
courtesy, and at the same time with great decision. 
He declined, in name of all, to discuss these questions 
till they had had an opportunity for consultation 
among themselves. Other matters were brought 
forward by the King, but not formally discussed. One 
of these was a letter that had been addressed by James 
Melville, from his sick-bed, to the Synod of Fife, in 



120 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



regard to the articles in which the King claimed 
supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs. e " I hard, Mr. 
James Melvill," said the King, "that ye wreitt a Lettre 
to the Synod of Fyff at Cowper, quhairin was meikle 
of Chryst, but lytle guid of the King. Be God I trow 
ye wes reavand or mad (for he spak so) ye speek 
utherwayis now. Now, wes that a charitabill judgment 
of me?" — "Sir," says Mr. James, with alow courtessie, 
" I wes baith seik and sair in bodie quhan I wreit that 
Lettre, bot sober and sound in mind. I wreit of your 
Majestie all guid, assureing my selff and the Bretherine 
that thais Articles quhairoff a copy cam in my 
handis could not be from your Majestie, they wer 
so strange; and quhom sould I think, speik, or wryt 
guid of, if not of your Majestie, quho is the man 
under Chryst quhom I wisch most guid and honour 
unto." ' 

At the consultation held among the brethren in 
regard to the points raised, they decided that when the 
conference was resumed they would give their answer 
through one of their number ; and that, as to the first 
question before them, they would decline, for reasons 
which we need not rehearse, to give any judgment on 
the Aberdeen Assembly. Meanwhile, however, the 
King had resolved that each of the ministers should 
answer the questions for himself, in the hope that their 
answers would prove conflicting, and so give him an 
advantage. 

At the second conference there were present the 
members of the English Council, the most eminent of 



ANDREW MELVILLE 121 



the prelates, and the most illustrious of the nobles. 
On the King's right hand sat the Primate, with many of 
England's proudest earls and all the great ministers 
of state; on his left the young Prince Henry, with 
the Scottish nobles and councillors; behind the arras 
several other nobles and bishops were gathered. In 
the midst of the assemblage stood the eight Scottish 
ministers, unabashed by the glitter of rank and royalty 
— plain men decorated with no honours, but in in- 
tellect and dignity of character the peers of the best in 
that company ; and to the crowd of courtiers gathered 
that day in the Council Hall of England they taught a 
lesson in one of the duties owing to a sovereign which 
few courtiers have practised — the duty of telling him 
the truth. 

The subject of conference was, as we have said, the 
conduct of the ministers who had held the Assembly in 
Aberdeen. The first to be asked their opinion by the 
King were the Scottish bishops and councillors, who 
answered promptly and unanimously that 'they had 
ever damnit that Assembly.' Turning from them to 
the eight brethren, and addressing their chief — the man 
above all others whom James sought to entrap : c " Now, 
Siris," sayis the King, "quhat say ye, and first Mr. 
Andro Melvill?" Quho, with meikle low courtessie, 
talkit all his mynd in his awin maner, roundly, soundly, 
fully, freely, and fervently, almaist the space of ane 
hour, not omitting any poynt he could remember.' 
James Balfour was the next called on, and the King, 
by the time he was done with Melville and him, evi- 



122 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



dently realised that he was getting the worst of the 
encounter — 'smelling how the matter went, he seemit 
weary.' Balfour was followed by James Melville, who 
at the close of his examination had the courage to 
hand to the King a supplication addressed to him 
by the condemned ministers, which James received 
with an angry smile. Next came Scott, whose 
speech was 'ane prettie piece of logicall and legal 
reasouneing, quhilk delighted and moved the judicious 
audiens.' The rest followed ' all most reverently on kneis, 
but thairwith most friely, statly, and plainely, to the 
admiration of the English auditorie, quho wer not 
accustomit to heir the King so talkit to and reassounit 
with/ When all had been examined, Melville craved 
to be heard again, and had the last word : he ' spake 
out in his awin maner, and friely and plainely affirmit 
the innocence of thais guid, faithfull, and honest 
Britherin, in all thair proceidingis at Abirdein ; and 
thairfoir he recomptit the wrongis done unto thame 
at Linlithgow, as ane that wes present as an eye and 
ear witness ; and taking him in direct termes to the 
Advocat, Mr. Thomas Hammiltoune, he invyit scharpely 
againes him, telling him planely and pathetically, of 
his favouring and spaireing the Papistis, and craftie, 
cruell, and malicious dealing againes the Ministeres of 
Jesus Chryst; so that he could have done no moir 
againes the saints of God then he had at Linlithgow ! 
At the quhilk words the King luiking to the Arch- 
bisschoppes, sayis, " Quhat ? Me thinkis he makes 
him the Antichryst ! " And, suddentlie, again with ane 



ANDREW MELVILLE 123 

oath, " Be God ! It is the divelis name in the Re- 
velatioune ! He hes maid the divel of him, wel- 
belovit Bretherine, brother Johne ! " And so, cuttitly 
ryseing, and turneing his back, he sayes, " God be with 
yow, Siris ! n ' As the King was moving out of the 
Presence Chamber he turned round and asked what 
remedy the Eight proposed for the jars of the Church, 
when they all as with one voice replied, 'A free 
Assembly ! ' 

While on their way from Hampton Court to their 
lodgings in Kingston, the Eight were recalled and 
charged not to return to Scotland, or to come near 
the King or Court until they were sent for. After 
this they enjoyed a short holiday — 'we had three 
dayis to refresche us and relax our myndis dureing 
the quhilk we wer visiting the fieldis about, namely, 
Nonsuche and Richmont.' 

Monday, 29th September, being Michaelmas Day, 
an elaborate service was held in the King's Chapel, the 
two Melvilles being present by the King's command. 
The younger suspected, rightly as it proved, that the 
King's object was to try their patience and provoke 
his uncle to an outburst of indignation which might 
bring him into trouble. The service was so high that 
a German visitor at the English Court declared it was 
not a whit behind the solemnity of the Mass but for 
the absence of the adoration of the Host. The snare 
set for Melville on this occasion succeeded, for it was a 
satirical verse on this service that was afterwards made 
the pretext for sending him to prison. 



124 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



After the service, the Eight were summoned before 
the Scottish Council, convened in the house of the 
Earl of Dunbar. They were called in, one by one, 
and once more questioned as to their approval of the 
Aberdeen Assembly. James Melville, who was the first 
called, made a patriotic speech, protesting warmly 
against the trial of Scotsmen on English soil and 
by English law ; the others followed him in the same 
strain. His uncle was the last to be called, and he 
' gaifF thame enought of it, alse plainely and scharplie 
as he wes accustomit, namely, telling thame flattly, that 
they knew not quhat they did ; and wer degenerat from 
the antiant nobilitie of Scotland, quho wer wont to give 
thair landis and lyffes for the fridom of the Kingdome 
and Gospel, and they wer bewraying and ovirturneing 
the same ! Till it became laite, and eftir sune-sett, 
that they were faine to dimitt us to the nixt calling 
for.' 

On the 2nd of October, the Eight were called again 
before the Scottish Council, and questions put to them 
bearing still on the same subject, to which they gave 
the same answers. The King, in fact, was only marking 
time to detain Melville and his colleagues in London 
till he had 1 effecuate matteres at home ' according to 
his mind. 

For a month the ministers were not asked to appear 
again in Court ; the session of Parliament had begun, 
and the King was engaged with the business of the 
Legislature. During this time they all lived together, 
and their lodging was the resort of many of their 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



Puritan brethren in the city and neighbourhood. They 
had much 1 guid exercise ' in the Word and in prayer. 
But the King and the Bishops having set spies on them 
who reported the way in which they were spending 
their time, they were all commanded to go into ward 
— each with a separate bishop. Andrew Melville's 
gaoler-in-lawn was to be the Bishop of Winchester, and 
his nephew's the Bishop of Durham ; but the two 
made such a spirited protest to the King, that his 
command was not meanwhile enforced. 

On the last day of November — it was a Sabbath — 
Melville, with his nephew and Wallace, was summoned 
to Whitehall to answer for certain Latin verses which 
had come into the King's hand. These were the 
lampoon which Melville had made on the Michael- 
mas service in the Royal Chapel, and he at once 
acknowledged the authorship. Interrupted in his 
apology by the Primate, Bancroft, who presided in the 
absence of the King, and who denounced his offence 
as treason, he turned upon him the torrent of his in- 
vective. 6 My lords,' exclaimed he, ' Andrew Melville 
was never a traitor. But, my lords, there was one 
Richard Bancroft (let him be sought for) who, during 
the life of the late Queen, wrote a treatise against his 
Majesty's title to the Crown of England; and here* 
(pulling the corpus delicti from his pocket) 'is the 
book which was answered by my brother, John 
Davidson. ' While Bancroft was stunned and silenced 
by the impetuosity of the attack, Melville went on to 
charge him with the chief responsibility for the Romish 



126 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



ritual that had been introduced into the English Church, 
and for the silencing of the Puritan ministers ; and then 
taking him by the white sleeves of his rochet, he shook 
them * in his maner frielie and roundlie, and called them 
Romish rags and the mark of the Beast.' The Primate 
was the reputed author of a book attacking Presbytery, 
and entitled The English Scottizing for Genevan Disci- 
pline. Melville denounced him as having proved him- 
self in that work ' the Capital Enemy of all the Reformed 
Churches of Europe, whom he would oppose to the 
effusion of the last drop of blood in his body, and 
whom it was a constant grief to him to see at the head 
of the King's Council in England.' He next turned 
his invective on another prelate present — Barlow — who 
in writing on the Hampton Court Conference had 
spoken of the King as in the Kirk of Scotland, but not 
of it : he marvelled that the Bishop had been left un- 
punished 'for making the King of no religion.' He 
was just beginning to put the rapier of his satire into 
the four sermons preached in the Royal Chapel against 
Presbytery, when he was interrupted by a Scottish 
nobleman present. ' Remember,' said he, 1 where you 
are and to whom you are speaking.' — 'I remember it 
very well, my lord,' retorted Melville, 'and am only 
sorry that your lordship, by sitting here and coun- 
tenancing such proceedings against me, should furnish 
a precedent which may yet be used against yourself or 
your posterity.' 

An hour after the close of this memorable scene, 
the Eight were recalled, and Melville was admonished 



ANDREW MELVILLE 127 



by the Lord Chancellor and ordered to go into ward, 
at his Majesty's pleasure, with the Dean of St. Paul's; 
the others were 'commandit to the custodie of their 
ain wyse and discreit cariage.' A warrant was at the 
same time issued by the Council to the Dean, en- 
joining him to give no one access to his prisoner, and 
to do his utmost to convert him to Episcopacy, To 
the Dean's house, accordingly, Melville went, and he 
remained there till the following March. 

In that month the King renewed his order to the 
other ministers to take up their lodgings, each in a 
bishop's house. James Melville again sent a protest to 
the clerk of the Council ; he also saw both the Bishop 
of Durham and the Primate on the business ; and his 
accounts of the interviews are very piquant. In his 
visit to the Primate he was accompanied by Scott. 
Bancroft received them with great deference, and 
sought to impress them with the King's courtesy in 
desiring that they should be entertained by the highest 
of the clergy. James Melville answered, with much 
dignity, that compulsory courtesy was agreeable to no 
man ; that the Scottish ministers were more acustomed 
to bestowing hospitality than receiving it; and that 
with such contrary opinions as they held on matters of 
Church and State, the bishops would not be pleasant 
hosts, and as little would the ministers be pleasant 
guests. Bancroft was frank enough to admit, that it 
was more to meet the wishes of the King than to please 
themselves that he and the other prelates offered enter- 
tainment to the ministers : he was, in truth, afraid that 



128 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



the latter, with their scrupulous notions, would prove 
dull guests and be offended at the games of cards and 
other diversions with which the lords of the Anglican 
Church were in the habit of passing their social hours. 
The conversation then turned to the pet project of the 
King — the conforming of the Scottish Church to Epis- 
copacy. James Melville, speaking in his own mild 
way, was listened to with patience by the Primate ; but 
when Scott began to enter into the subject in a char- 
acteristically Scottish fashion, with great seriousness 
and elaboration, Bancroft's patience failed him; and 
interrupting his discourse, smiling and laying his hand 
on his shoulder, the Primate said, * Tush, man ! Tak 
heir a coupe of guid seek/ And therewith filling the 
cup, he made them both drink, and after a little mild 
conviviality the two ministers left the Palace. 

At the end of March the chief prisoner received an 
order from the Council to transfer himself to the 
custody of the Bishop of Winchester. He left the 
Dean's, but forgot to go to the Bishop's, and for two 
months his evasion of the Council's instruction was 
winked at, and he lodged with the other brethren. The 
last act in this prolonged drama was now to be per- 
formed, and the King's part in it was characteristically 
base. Early in the morning of Sabbath, 26th April, 
one of the Earl of Salisbury's servants came to Melville 
at his lodging in Bow with an urgent message to him 
to meet the Earl at Whitehall early on the same day. 
Melville had no suspicion that the Premier had sum- 
moned him for any unfriendly purpose, and at once, 



ANDREW MELVILLE 129 

borrowing his landlord's horse, posted off to Court. He 
took a moment to look in on his nephew, who suspected 
that he was to be called again before the Council, and 
who, as soon as his uncle left, followed on foot to the 
Palace with other two of the ministers. The Premier 
did not keep his appointment ; and Melville, tired of 
waiting, came to the inn at Westminster, where he 
knew that his nephew and other two brethren were 
to dine, and joined them in their meal : 1 And quhill 
our buird coverit, 1 and the meitt put thairon, he uttirit 
to us ane excellent meditatioun, quhilk he had walking 
in the gallerie, on the second Psalme, joyneing thair- 
with prayer; quhairby we wer all muche movit; 
accounting the same in place of our Sabbath foirnoone's 
exercise, endit, and, sitting doun to dinner, he rehersit 
his St. Georgis Verses, with vehement invectioun 
againes the corruptiounes and superstitiounes of 
England. Thairfoir, his cousine, Mr. James, sayes to 
him, " Remember Ovidis verses — 

' Si saperem, doctas odissem jure sorores 
Numina cultori perniciosa suo ! ' " 

His answer was in the verses following :— 

" Sed nunc (tanta meo comes est insania morbo) 
Saxa (malum !) refero rursus ad icta pedem." 

"Weill," sayis his cousine, "eit your dinner, and be 
of good courage, for I sail warrand yow ye sal be befoir 
the Council for your Verses." — "Weill," sayis he, " my 
heart is full and burdened, and I will be glaid to haif 

1 While our table was being spread. 
I 



13° 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



ane occasioun to disburdein it, and speik all my mynd 
plainely to thame for the dishonouring of Chryst, and 
wraik of sua many soulis for their doeings; be the 
beiring doun the sinceritie and fridom of the Gospel, 
stoping that healthsome breath of Godis mouth, and 
maintaining of the Papistis' corruptiounes and super- 
stitiounes." — "I warrand you," sayis Mr. James, "they 
know you will speik your mynd friely ; and thairfoir, hes 
concludit to make that a meines to keip yow from going 
home to Scotland." — He answered, " Iff God hes ony 
thing to doe with me in Scotland more, He will bring 
me home to Scotland again iff He haiff any service for 
me : giff not, let me glorifie Him, quhidder or quhair- 
ever I be ; and as I haif said often to yow, cousine, I 
think God hes sume pairt to play with us on this 
theatre ! " We had not half dyneit quhen one comes 
to him from Lord Salisberie ; to quhom he said, "Sir, 
I waitted longe upon my Lordis dinner till I waxed 
verie hungrie, and could not stay longer. I pray my 
Lord to suffir me to tak a lytle of my awin dinner ! " 
That messenger wes not weill gone quhill againe 
comes another ; soone eftir that, Mr. Alexander Hay, 
the Scottish Secretar, telling him that the Counsel was 
long sett attending him. At the heiring quhairoff, 
with great motioun, raysing, he prayit ; and, leiving us 
at diner (for we wer expressely chairgit that we come 
not within the Police), went with Mr. Alexander Hay, 
with great commotioun of mynd.' Within an hour of 
Melville's leaving them, a messenger whom they had 
sent to ascertain the result of the Council meeting 



ANDREW MELVILLE 131 

returned with tears in his eyes to announce that their 
Chief had been conveyed to the Tower. 

The proceedings at the Council we learn from the 
French Ambassador at the English Court. The King 
did not appear in the Council Chamber, but was in 
close attendance at the keyhole of the next apartment. 
'The Earl of Salisbury took up the subject, and began 
to reprove him for his obstinacy in refusing to acknow- 
ledge the Primacy, and for the verses which he had 
made in derision of the Royal Chapel. Melville was so 
severe in his reply both in what related to the King 
and to the Earl personally, that his lordship was 
completely put to silence. To his assistance came the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, then the Earl of North- 
ampton, then the Lord Treasurer ; all of whom he 
rated in such a manner, sparing none of the vices, 
public or private, with which they are respectively 
taxed (and none of them are angels), that they would 
have been glad that he had been in Scotland. In the 
end, not being able to induce him to swear to the 
Primacy, and not knowing any other way to revenge 
themselves on him, they agreed to send him prisoner 
to the Tower. When the sentence was pronounced, 
he exclaimed: "To this comes the boasted pride of 
England ! A month ago you put to death a priest, and 
to-morrow you will do the same to a minister." Then 
addressing the Duke of Lennox and the Earl of Mar, 
who were in the Council, he said, " I am a Scotchman, 
my lords, a true Scotchman ; and if you are such, take 
heed that they do not end with you as they have begun 



132 FAMOUS SCOTS 

with me. ,M1 The King was more disconcerted by this 
parting shot of Melville's than by anything that had 
happened at the interview. 

On 6th May, Melville's colleagues learned the fate 
the King had decreed for them. James Melville was 
commanded to leave London and go into ward at 
Newcastle-on-Tyne ; the other six were to return to 
Scotland to be confined in districts named in the 
King's warrant, and they were excluded from any share 
in the business of the Church courts. 

When the others took their journey northwards, 
James Melville and William Scott remained in London 
for a fortnight to make arrangements, if possible, to 
mitigate the imprisonment of their Chief. James Mel- 
ville, through the indulgence of one of the warders, saw 
his uncle at the window of his prison for a short time 
each day during this interval, and permission was 
obtained for Melville's servant to wait upon him in the 
Tower \ but no other favour was granted. James Mel- 
ville used every means to gain permission to stay in 
London and attend to his uncle's comfort, but in vain ; 
and with a sore heart he had to make up his mind to 
leave him. On the day he and Scott were setting out 
for the north, two or three of their acquaintances in 
London visited them ; and one of these, a Mr. Corsbie, 
' a guid brother, apothecarie of calling,' brought with 
him £ a great bag of monie alse meikle as he could weill 
carie in his oxter.' The money had been raised by 
friends in the city who had been touched by the noble 
bearing of the ministers before the King and Council, 

i Amhassades de M. de la Boderie, quoted by M'Crie, p. 271. 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



153 



to defray the expenses of their journey as well as the 
outlay incurred curing their residence in London, which 
the King, with unspeakable meanness, had failed to 
discharge. This gift the twc brethren courteously and 
gratefully declined. Since James's accession to 
the English Throne there had been a great outcry 
against the Scots on account of the beggarly 
rabble who crossed the Tweed and came to Court tc 
importune the King for 'auld debts' cue to them by 
his Majesty ; and Melville and his colleague were re- 
solved that they would furnish the English people with 
an ether and a truer version of the character of their 
countrymen by leaving London poorer than when they 
came to it. Besides, there were many among the Puri- 
tan clergy in the English Church who had been cast 
out of their livings, and had more need of the money ; 
instead of taking the help cnered. the two brethren 
would rather endeavour to raise money in their own 
country, poor as it was. to relieve the necessities of 
these ministers. Their friends gave warm exnressirn 
to their sense of the honourable motives vrhieh led 
Melville and Scott to decline the gift: and accompany- 
ing them to the Tower steps,, where the heat was lying 
that was to convey them to their ship, they hade them 
affectionate farewell. As the two were rowed de^n the 
Thames, they cast many a wistful look back to the 
prison where they were leaving their beloved friend and 
Chief at the mercy of a graceless tyrant. And so ended 
one of the most picturesque and honourable passages 
in the history of the Scottish Church 



CHAPTER X 

THE KING'S ASSEMBLIES 



'Gold? 

• • • ■ • * • 

Ha, you gods ! Why, this 

Will lug your priests and servants from your sides.' 

Timon of Athens, 

Before we go on to the closing chapter of Melville's 
personal history, we must glance at the course of 
events in Scotland from the time he and his brethren 
were called to London, up to the Glasgow Assembly 
in 1 6 10, when the Church made a total surrender 
to the King, and 'Jericho was buildit up againe in 
Scotland.' 

The Invincibles of the Church having been put out 
of the way by imprisonment or banishment, the King 
felt that he might safely call an Assembly to execute 
his wishes, and to ratify in the Church's name the 
restoration of Episcopacy as it had been decreed by 
the Parliament. So in the beginning of December 
1606, the Assembly was summoned to meet in Lin- 
lithgow. Letters were sent by the King to every 
presbytery ; and they not only intimated the meeting, 

134 



ANDREW MELVILLE 135 

but named the representatives to be sent. In the event 
of the presbyteries refusing to return the King's nomi- 
nees, these were instructed to appear without any 
presbyterial mandate. The business was stated to be 
the suppression of Popery and the healing of the jars 
of the Church. In this programme the former item 
was the gilt on the pill of the latter. James Balfour — 
who was in London at the time — exposed the real 
character of the Assembly's business when he was told 
of it by Bishop Law of Orkney, who had come to 
Court to report the proceedings to the King: iU In 
nomine Domini incipit omne malum I This is pretendit 
bot the dint will lycht on the Kirk. . " They sail call 
me a false knave," replied the Bishop, " and never to be 
believit again, if the Papists be not sa handleit as they 
wer never in Scotland." — " That may weill be," ' was 
Balfour's rejoinder. 

When the House came to the matter which was the 
real occasion for the Assembly being held, the question 
was put, What was the cause of the jars of the Kirk ? 
And the answer given was, The want of a free Assembly. 
King's men as they were, the members had not yet 
been tamed to entire servility ; as was further shown 
by their agreeing to petition James on behalf of the 
banished ministers, and by their appointing another 
Assembly to be held in Edinburgh in the following 
year. The King's Commissioner — the Earl of Dunbar 
— was surely in a compliant mood when he allowed the 
House such liberty ! But at this point the trump card 
he had been concealing in his sleeve was thrown on 



136 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



the table. He proposed in the King's name that until 
the business for which the Assembly had been called 
was settled, Constant Moderators should be appointed 
for the presbyteries. As it was said at the time, these 
Constant Moderators were to be thrust like little thieves 
into the windows to open the door to the great thieves 
— the bishops. Strong objection was made to this 
fatal innovation on Presbytery, and it was agreed to, 
only after cautions, proposed by the House, had been 
accepted by the Commissioner. 

That even such a tame Assembly was indisposed to 
yield up the liberties of the Church at the demand of 
the King was shown by the passing of resolutions 
intended to clip the wings of the bishops. These 
resolutions declared, with the concurrence of the 
bishops themselves, that they were subject to the 
discipline of the Church and amenable to their own 
presbyteries. 

The King was mightily displeased with his friends in 
the Assembly because they had not 'proceedit frielyer'; 
he was enraged at the bishops for submitting themselves 
to the courts of the Church. The Moderator, Nicol- 
son, Bishop of Dunkeld, at one time James Melville's 
bosom friend and a standard-bearer of the Kirk, took 
the King's displeasure so much to heart that he fell ill, 
and when it was proposed to send for a doctor, replied, 
'Send for King James; it is the digesting of his 
Bishoprick that has wracked my stomack.' 

The presbyteries rose up in arms against the Con- 
stant Moderators, as did all the synods except Angus; 



ANDREW MELVILLE 137 



and many scenes of violence took place at the meetings 
of these courts through the attempt made by the King's 
Commissioner to force the adoption of the Acts of the 
Linlithgow Assembly. The King had still some hard 
work to do before he could accomplish his pur- 
poses. His next step was to propose a conference 
of ministers, chosen from both sides of the House, to 
confer on the questions at issue; and meanwhile all 
public discussion on these questions was to be sus- 
pended. The ministers accepted the proposal — 
another of these fatal concessions by which they 
were only drawn further into the King's net. Confer 
and discuss as they might, the King remained the 
final arbiter, and only one conclusion would be 
accepted by him. By the suspension of hostilities 
between the two parties in the Church, those who 
were opposed to the King gained nothing, and he 
gained much. While the ministers were silent and 
inactive, the bishops were as aggressive as ever; 
they openly avowed their intention of conforming 
the Church to Episcopacy; and they brought down 
from London the King's Commissioner and several 
dignitaries of the English Church to assist them in 
the task. 

At the next meeting of Parliament, July 1609, the 
only measure now needed, so far as Parliament was 
concerned, to restore a full-blown Episcopacy, was 
passed without opposition. There was no minister 
present; while Episcopal dignitaries were again brought 
from London to grace the proceedings and witness the 



i3 8 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



surrender that was to be made to their own ecclesias- 
tical polity. At that Parliament 'thai rayd royallie 
and Prelat lyk.' The measures that were passed 
restored the judicial power of the bishops, their seats 
in the Court of Session, and their lands and revenues. 
Authority was given to them to fix stipends and to 
raise or lower them as they were minded, and so 
the ministers were made to a large extent their 
dependants. One of the measures, the setting up 
of a High Court of Commission, raised the bishops 
to a higher degree of authority than they had ever 
possessed before. It was virtually a bishop's court, 
and it was invested with extraordinary power; those 
who sat in it could call before them any person in 
the kingdom who had incurred their displeasure, 
and judge and punish him without law and without 
appeal. 

The Acts of this Parliament were the King's pen- 
ultimate stroke against Presbytery. They armed the 
bishops with such power, that the King felt he might 
at length summon an Assembly which would make 
submission to Episcopacy. An Assembly was accord- 
ingly held in Glasgow in June 1610; and there the 
King's resolutions were carried with only two dis- 
sentient voices. The House was again filled with 
the King's nominees; and bribes were distributed 
among the members to the tune of 40,000 merks. 
The bribes were paid in 'Angel' pieces, and so 
the Assembly came to be known as the Angelical 
Assembly. It was money that did the King's 'turn'; 



ANDREW MELVILLE 139 

'and sa at ane stollen dint 1 in ane day was over- 
thrown ane worke seventie yeiris in building, and 
above twenty-four yeiris spacious and most profitabill 
standing.' 

1 Stolen opportunity. 



CHAPTER XI 
THE tower: sedan 

* Here spirits that have run their race, and fought, 
And won the fight, and have not feard the frowns 
Nor lov'd the smiles of greatness, but have wrought 
Their Master's will, meet to receive their Crowns. ' 

Henry Vaughan. 

For the first year, Melville's imprisonment was of 
rigorous severity. The King seemed incapable of any 
spark of chivalry towards one of the very brightest 
spirits of his people. James, perhaps least of all the 
Stuarts, illustrated the principle of noblesse oblige. 
Melville's attendant was taken from him; no visitors 
were admitted ; neither was the use of writing materials 
allowed. After twelve months, however, some relaxa- 
tion was gained, through the good offices of Sir James 
Sempill of Beltrees, the Balladist, who was a warm 
friend of Melville, and sympathised with him in his 
struggle to maintain Presbyterianism, although he 
himself had been brought up at Court — his mother 
having been maid-in-honour to Queen Mary — and 
educated along with the King under George Buchanan. 
He was transferred to a comfortable room in the 



ANDREW MELVILLE 141 

Tower : he was now permitted to see friends, and also 
to write. It was in literary labour he occupied his 
time. He wrote at least one controversial pamphlet, 
a reply to a Defence of Episcopacy written by a 
dignitary of the English Church, and circulated 
gratis in Scotland among the ministers; he also 
translated many of the Psalms. It was in poetical 
composition, however, that he found his chief recrea- 
tion and solace. When he quitted the apartment 
in which he was first confined, the walls were found 
covered with verses written by him in finely formed 
characters with the tongue of his shoe-buckle. Every 
letter he sent to James Melville contained a number 
of verses 'warm from the anvil/ His nephew, in one 
of his letters enclosing a remittance of money, had 
remarked : * I shall send you money, and you shall 
send me songs. I have good hope that you will run 
short of verses for my use before I run short of gold 
for yours/ to which he replied: 'So you have the 
confidence to say that the fountain of the Muses from 
which I draw will be exhausted sooner than the vein 
of that gold mine, whence you extract the treasures 
w T ith which you supply me so liberally. Hold, prithee ! 
take care what you say, especially to poets like me, 
who when I do sing, sing at the invitation of the 
Muses and under their inspiration.' One of his com- 
positions did not owe its origin to 'the imperative 
breath of song 9 ; it was an ode to the King, written 
on the advice of friends, in the hope that such an 
appeal to his better nature might lead James to grant 



142 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



him his liberty. The ode failed of its purpose; and 
Melville might have applied to the King with curious 
fitness the words addressed by the Border outlaw in 
the ballad to the King's grandfather, James v. : 

* To seik het water beneith cauld ice, 
Surelie it is a greit follie. 
I have asked grace at a graceless face, 
But there is nane for my men and me. 

But had I kenn'd ere I cam frae hame 
How thou unkind wadst been to me, 
I wad have keepit the Border side 
In spite of all thy force and thee.' 

Melville did not expect any other result, although he 
had been told that the King seemed favourably dis- 
posed towards him. He knew his man : ( Fronti nulla 
fides* was, he said, a proverb often in his mind at 
that time. Soon after writing this ode to the King, 
he, for the same purpose, submitted an apology to the 
Privy Council for any offence he had given by the 
epigram which had cost him his liberty ; but it also 
failed. In this matter Archbishop Spotswood played 
a double part, advising Melville to send the apology, 
while he and his brother-prelate, Archbishop Gled- 
stanes, were doing all they could to prevent the King 
restoring Melville and the other exiled ministers to 
liberty. Melville was no more disappointed with 
Spotswood's conduct than he had been with the King's: 
' Sed non ego credulus illis? 
All his trials and long vexations did not dim his 



ANDREW MELVILLE 143 



hopefulness ; of no man might it be said more truly 
that he 

1 Never doubted clouds would break,' 

1 Away with fear — I will cherish the hope of everything 
that is cheering and joyous. ... I betake myself to my 
sacred anchor — "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God" ' 
— so he wrote from the Tower. 

For some time a son of James Melville who bore 
his uncle's name, and another nephew, lodged with 
Melville in the Tower ; and he had many distinguished 
visitors, such as Isaac Casaubon and Bishop Hall of 
Norwich, who were proud to be numbered among his 
friends. Another illustrious victim of the King's 
treachery, one of the many of England's noblest sons 
who stepped from the Tower into immorality, Sir 
Walter Raleigh, was a fellow-prisoner of Melville. 
Did they ever meet ? We would give much to know 
that they did ; it would be pleasant to think of so rare 
a conjunction of spirits. Melville found his greatest 
solace, however, in his nephew's devotion. There was 
no ministry of love which James Melville failed to 
render to his uncle ; and very touching in their tender- 
ness are the letters which passed between the two. 
He was also much moved by the tokens of remem- 
brance he received from old friends — comrades in 
the battles of the Church — and from their children. 
Acknowledging a gift of money which had been partly 
contributed by a family of a deceased brother in the 
ministry, he says : 1 I received the Spanish and British 



144 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



angels, equalling in number the Apostles, the Graces, 
and the Elements, with a supernumerary one of the 
Seraphic order. ... I do not rejoice so much in 
them (although these commutable pieces of money 
are at present very useful to me) as I do at the 
renewing of the memory of my deceased friends, and 
the prospect of our friendship being perpetuated in 
their posterity, who have given such a favourable 
presage of future virtue and genuine piety; for what 
else could have induced them to take such an interest 
in my affairs at this time? Wherefore I congratulate 
them, and I rejoice that this favourable opportunity 
of transmitting friendship inviolate from father to son 
and grandson has been afforded/ 

The only matter on which there was ever a hint of 
misunderstanding between Melville and his nephew 
was the latter's second marriage, to which the uncle 
was at first much opposed. Their correspondence on 
this subject contains some passages of lively repar- 
tee, in which the elder undoubtedly came off second 
best. 'The chaste father' — so the younger writes — 
' who reposed in the embraces of Minerva was not to 
measure others by himself; he was not ashamed to 
own he was in love ; ay, and had he not the highest 
precedents for the step he was taking — there were 
Knox, and Craig, and Pont, and who not else of the 
venerable fathers of the Church ! ' ' My sweet Melissa J 
soon won uncle Andro's affection, and many a gift of 
garments, embroidered by her skilful hands, found its 
way to the lonely prisoner in the Tower. 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



At the close of 1610, the English Ambassador at the 
French Court brought a request from the Duke de 
Bouillon, a leading French Protestant, to the King 
that he would give Melville his release, in order that 
he might go to Sedan to fill the collegiate Chair of 
Divinity in the University. After some negotiations, in 
which James showed his old grudging spirit towards 
his prisoner, the request was granted. But it was not 
easy for Melville to tear himself away from his native 
land. Writing to his nephew, he says : — 

'I am in a state of suspense as to the course which I 
ought to take. There is no room for me in Britain on 
account of pseudo-Episcopacy — no hope of my being 
allowed to revisit my native country. Our bishops return 
home after being anointed with the waters of the Thames. 
Alas, liberty is fled ! religion is banished ! I have nothing 
new to write to you, except my hesitation about niy banish- 
ment. I reflect upon the active life which I s^ent in my 
native country during the space of thirty-six years, the idle 
life which I have been condemned to spend in prison, the 
reward which I have received from men for my labours, the 
inconveniences of old age, and other things of a similar 
kind, taken in connection with the disgraceful bondage of 
the Church and the base perfidy of men. But in vain : I am 
still irresolute. Shall I desert my station ? Shall I fly from 
my native country, from my native Church, from my very 
self? Or, shall I deliver myself up, like a bound quadruped, 
to the will and pleasure of men ? No : sooner than do this, 
I am resolved, by the grace of God, to endure the greatest 
extremity. Until my fate is fixed, I cannot be free from 
anxiety.' 

As Melville, however, continued to weigh the invita- 
tion to Sedan, it was more and more borne in upon his 

K 



146 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



mind that it was the call of Providence and the fulfil- 
ment of a presage of which he had often spoken, that 
he was destined to confess Christ on a larger theatre ; 
so he decided to accept it, and left for France on 19th 
April 161 1. 

There were six Protestant universities in France, and 
many of their Chairs were held by Scotsmen who had 
been Melville's students in St. Andrews. In Sedan, 
an Aberdonian was Principal, and another fellow- 
countryman filled the Chair of Philosophy. In this 
retired frontier town of France, the scene in our own 
day of the crowning disaster to her army which gave 
the finishing stroke to the Napoleonic dynasty, Melville 
spent the remainder of his days ; and from it he passed 
away to the land that was ' nativest 7 to him. 

Some months after settling in Sedan, he received 
a letter from his nephew with all the home news, 
which was very gloomy. The bishops were now in 
their glory. c If they get the Kingdom of Heaven/ so 
the Chancellor Seaton said of them, 'they must be 
happy men, for they already reign on earth.' The 
pulpits were silent : poor nephew James himself was 
still in exile, sick, with his heart pierced with 
many wounds, and longing that he had the wings of 
a dove that he might fly away and be at rest To 
this letter Melville replied in a strain of exuberant 
cheerfulness : — 

' Your letter, my dear James, gave me as much pleasure 
as it is possible for one to receive in these gloomy and 
evil days. We must not forget the apostolical injunction, 



ANDREW MELVILLE 



147 



u Rejoice always : rejoice in hope." Non si male nunc> et 
olim erit. Providence is often pleased to grant prosperity 
and long impunity to those whom it intends to punish for 
their crimes, in order that they may feel more severely from 
the reverse. ... It is easy for a wicked man to throw a 
commonwealth into disorder : God only can restore it. 
Empires which have been procured by fraud cannot be 
stable or permanent. Pride and cruelty will meet with a 
severe, though it may be a late retribution ; and, according 
to the Hebrew proverb, " When the tale of bricks is doubled, 
Moses comes." The result of past events is oracular of 
the future : " In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen." 
Why, then, exert our ingenuity and labour in adding to our 
vexation ? Aw r ay with fearful apprehensions ! ' 

Turning his thoughts to his old friends and neighbours, 
the exile makes playful inquiries for their welfare : — 

' What is the profound Dreamer (so I was accustomed to 
call him when we travelled together in 1584) — what is our 
Corydon of Haddington about? I know he cannot be 
idle ; has he not brought forth or perfected anything yet, 
after so many decades of years ? Tempus Atla veniet tua 
quo spoliabitur arbos. Let me know if our old friend 
Wallace has at last become the father of books and bairns ? 
Menalcas of Cupar on the Eden is, I hear, constant ; and I 
hope he will prove vigilant in discharging all the duties of 
a pastor, and not mutable in his friendships, as too many 
discover themselves to be in these cloudy days. Salute 
him in my name ; as also Damcetas of Elie, and our friend 
Dykes, with such others as you know to "hold the begin- 
ning of their confidence and the rejoicing of their hope 
firm to the end." . . . We old men daily grow children 
again, and are ever and anon turning our eyes and thoughts 
back on our cradles. We praise the past days because we 
can take little pleasure in the present. Suffer me then to 
dote ; for I am now become pleased with old age, although 
I have lived so long as to see some things which I could 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



wish never to have seen. I try daily to learn something 
new, and thus to prevent my old age from becoming listless 
and inert. I am always doing, or at least attempting to do, 
something in those studies to which I devoted myself in 
the younger part of my life. Accept this long epistle from 
a talkative old man. Loqui senibus res est gratissima, says 
your favourite Palingenius, the very mention of whose 
name gives me new life ; for the regeneration forms almost 
the sole topic of my meditations, and in this do i exercise 
myself that I may have my conversation in heaven.' 

How keenly Melville felt the cruelty of the Government 
in driving himself and his nephew into exile appears in 
another part of the same letter : — 

' What crime have you committed? What has the 
monarch now to dread? Does not the primate sit in 
triumph — traxitque sub astra furoremt What is there, 
then, to hinder you, and me also (now approaching my 
seventieth year, and consequently emeritus), from breath- 
ing our native air, and, as a reward of our toils, being 
received into the Prytaneum, to spend the remainder of 
our lives, without seeking to share the honours and affluence 
which we do not envy the pretended bishops ? We have 
not been a dishonour to the kingdom, and we are allied to 
the royal family. [Melville claimed a consanguinity for his 
family with the Stuarts through their common extraction 
from John of Gaunt.] But let envy do its worst ; no prison, 
no exile, shall prevent us from confidently expecting the 
kingdom of heaven.' 

In the following year Melville was greatly cheered 
by hearing that all the exiled ministers had refused 
an offer which the Crown had made to allow them to 
return to their country on condition of their making 
a submission to Episcopacy ; and he wrote expressing 



ANDREW MELVILLE 149 



his admiration of their heroism, and assuring them of 
his continual remembrance : 1 1 keep all my friends in 
my eye ; I carry them in my bosom ; I commend 
them to the God of mercy in my daily prayers. . . . 
I do not sink under adversity; I reserve myself for 
better days.' 

In April 1614 there fell on Melville the heaviest 
blow his affection ever received — the tidings of his 
nephew's death. James Melville died well-nigh broken- 
hearted; he had not been allowed to return to his 
own country and resume his charge of his poor 
seafaring folk, nor to join in France the exile who was 
so endeared to him. On his deathbed, and within a 
few hours of the end, when one who was beside him 
asked if he had no desire to recover, he replied, c No, 
not for twenty worlds.' His friends asked him to give 
them some sign that he was at peace, when he 
repeated the dying words of the martyr Stephen, and 
so passed away to that country of his own which all 
his life he had been seeking. 

There is no one in the long line of great Scottish 
Churchmen whose memory deserves more honour than 
James Melville, or inspires so much affection, so 
gracious was his spirit, so pure his character, so 
disinterested his aims. With the solitary exception 
which we need not name, there was no one in his own 
day who rendered better or more varied service to the 
Church and to the country. For many years he was 
his uncle's right-hand man as a teacher in our two chief 
Universities ; the Church never had a pastor who had 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



more of the true pastors heart, nor a leader of more 
wisdom in counsel, more persuasiveness in conference, 
more decision in action; it never had a more vivid 
historian, nor one whose writings are so great a treasure 
of our Scottish literature. When James Melville came 
to his grave, how different the world would be to his 
great kinsman, who could so truly have said, 'Very 
pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me 
was wonderful, passing the love of women.' His 
uncle's grief found its only solace in the thought 
that he was 'now out of all doubt and fashrie, enjoying 
the fruits of his suffering here/ 

Melville himself never lost his hopefulness and 
happy ardour. In 1612 he wrote to Robert Durie, 
one of the banished brethren : — 

' Am I not threescore and eight years old ; unto the 
which age none of my fourteen brethren came ? And yet, 
I thank God, I eat, I drink, I sleep, as well as I did these 
thirty years bygone, and better than when I was younger — 
in ipso flore adolescentitz. Only the gravel now and then 
seasons my mirth with some little pain, which I have felt 
only since the beginning of March the last year, a month 
before my deliverance from prison. I feel, thank God, no 
abatement of the alacrity and ardour of my mind for the 
propagation of the truth. Neither use I spectacles now 
more than ever, yea, I use none at all, nor ever did, and 
see now to read Hebrew without points, and in the 
smallest characters, Why may I not live to see a 
changement to the better, when the Prince shall be 
informed truly by honest men, or God open His eyes and 
move His heart to see the pride of stately prelates ?' 

The last production from Melville's pen was a pam- 



ANDREW MELVILLE 151 

phlet against the Anglican ceremonies imposed by the 
King on the Church in The Five Articles of Perth in 
1 6 18. We know little of the last years of his life. His 
health apparently gave way in 1620, and he died in 
Sedan in 1622, having reached his seventy-seventh year. 

The only fault Melville's enemies could find with 
his personal character was his impetuous and explosive 
temper. In regard to this, he was his own best 
apologist when he said, ' If my anger is from below, 
trample upon it ; but if from above, let it rise ! ' If he 
was 'zealously affected,' it was always 'in a good thing.' 
No one could ever charge him with personal or narrow 
ambitions. It was always, as he once wrote, his own 
desire 'to be concealed in the crowd even when the 
field of honour appeared to ripen 1 before him ; and 
his nephew says of him : 1 Whowbeit he was verie hat 
in all questiones, yet when it twitched his particular, 1 
no man could crab him, contrare to the common 
custome.' No one of braver spirit or truer mould 
has been among us, and we need to allow but little for 
the colouring of affection to accept James Melville's 
judgment: 'Scottland never receavit a graitter benefit 
at the hands of God than this man.' He is one of 
those great personalities of our history who have left 
us an example of the moral daring which is the 
greatest property of the human soul, and the spring 
of its noblest achievements. The struggle for the 
advancement of human wellbeing is carried on in ever- 
changing lines ; the problems of the Church and the 
1 When it concerned his private interest. 



152 FAMOUS SCOTS 

nation alter; the battlegrounds of freedom and progress 
shift ; but this spiritual intrepidity and scorn of conse- 
quence ever remains the chief and most indispens- 
able factor in the highest service of mankind. It 
is to men like Melville, who have a higher patriotism 
than that which is bounded by any earthly territory, 
whose country is the realm of Truth, whose loyalty 
transcends submission to any human sovereign, that 
every people owes its noblest heritage. Such are 
the men who have been the makers of Scotland. l Sic 
fortis Etruria crevit.' 



INDEX 



Aberdeen, the Assembly at, 112. 
Act of 1592, 70. 

Adamson, Patrick, Archbishop of 
St. Andrews, 38, 51-53, 59, 61. 

Andrewes, Bishop of Chichester, 
118. 

Armada, the Spanish, 64, 65. 
Assembly times in Melville's day, 
41. 

Balcanquhal, Walter, minis- 
ter in Edinburgh, 42. 

Balfour of Burley, 28, 82-84. 

James, minister in Edin- 
burgh, 117, 135. 

Bancroft, Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, 125, 127, 128, 131. 

Barlow, Bishop of Rochester, 117, 
126. 

Basilicon Dor on, 108. 
Beza, 21, 22. 
Black Acts, 51. 

Black, David, minister in St. 
Andrews, 77, 82, 95, 103. 

1 Bonnie Earl 1 of Moray, 69. 

Bouillon, Duke de, 145. 

Bruce, Robert, minister in Edin- 
burgh, 66, 67, 69, in. 

Buchanan, George, 24, 25, 44. 

Burton, John Hill, 12, 92. 

Casaubon, Isaac, 143. 
Covenant, renewal of, 85. 
Craig, John, minister in Edin- 
burgh, 53, 144. 



Davidson, ohn, minister of 
Liberton and Prestonpans, 46, 
104, 105. 

Davison, the EnglishAmbassador, 
54- 

Dunbar, Earl of, King's Commis- 
sioner for Scotland, 124, 135. 

Durie, John, minister in Edin- 
burgh, 36, 46, 48, 53. 

Robert, minister of An- 

struther, 150. 

Edinburgh, the plague in, 55. 
Vindictive Acts against the 

city of, 99. 
Episcopacy, Scotland's dread of, 

10. 

Erskine, John, of Dun, 15, 16, 53 

Falkland, 83, 89, 90. 
Fife, Synod of, 60, 76, 100. 
Foreign students at the Scottish 
Universities, 12, 30. 

Geneva, 21. 

Glasgow, Assembly of, 84, 138. 

University of, 24, 26. 

Gledstanes, Archbishop of St. 

Andrews, 103, 142. 
Gowrie Conspiracy, no. 

Hall, Bishop of Norwich, 143. 

Intimates of Melville, 41. 

153 



i54 



FAMOUS SCOTS 



James vi., precocity of, as a child, 
24. 

assumes the government, 43. 

his Court favourites, 43. 

his seizure by the Ruthven 

lords, 48. 

his escape, 48. 

— - described by Davison, the 

English Ambassador, 54. 
— his surrender to the Ruthven 

lords, 55. 
in re Archbishop Adamson, 

61. 

his Popish sympathies, 64, 

75. 

unseasonableness in the 

activity of, 65. 

his marriage, 67. 

his laudation of the Scottish 

Church, 68. 

rated by Elizabeth, 72, 78. 

his attempt to bribe James 

Melville, 78. 
his expedition against Hun tly, 

81. 

- — removes his Court to Linlith- 
gow, 98. 

and Melville at Hampton 

Court (chap, ix.), 1 16-133. 

his petty vindictiveness, 140, 

141, 144. 

Knox, John, 13, 144. 

Lawson, James, minister in 
Edinburgh, 42, 50, 51, 52. 

Maitland, Chancellor of Scot- 
land, 66, 67, 70. 
Melville, birth of, 15. 

educated at Montrose, 16. 

student of St. Andrews, 17. 

goes abroad, 17. 

at Paris, 17. 



Melville at Poitiers, 18. 

at Geneva, 21, 

— <- returns to Scotland, 22. 

declines Morton's patronage, 

23. 

is offered the Principalships 

of Glasgow and St. Andrews, 
24. 

Principal of Glasgow, 26. 

Principal of St. Andrews, 27. 

attracts students from the 

Continent, 30. 

his first Assembly, 35. 

encounter of, with Morton, 

37. 

— — his intimates, 41. 

in re Archbishop Mont- 
gomery, 45, 46. 

encounter of, with Arran, 

47- 

before the King and Council, 

48, 49. 

his flight to England, 50. 

returns to Scotland, 56. 

in re Archbishop Adamson, 

61. 

his kindness to Adamson, 

62. 

and the Armada, 65. 

in re Popish lords, 76. 

admonishes the King and 

the Lords of the Articles, 79. 
with the expedition against 

Huntly, 81. 
at Falkland Palace, 83, 89, 

90. 

at the Dundee Assembly, 

102. 

at the Second Dundee As- 
sembly, 105. 

at the Holyrood Conference, 

106-108. 

at the Montrose Assembly, 

109. 



INDEX 



155 



Melville attends the Parliament, 
113. 

summoned to London by the 

King, 116. 
before the King and Council 

of England, 121. 
attends Michaelmas Day 

service in Royal Chapel, 123. 
his satiric verses on the ser- 
vice, 123. 
before the Scottish Council 

in London, 124. 

at Whitehall, 12:, 

his attack on Archbishop 

Eancreft, 125, 

is ordered into ward, 127, 

his Henzcr-mahl, 129. 

again before the English 

Council, 131. 

is sent to the Tower, 131. 

his occupations in prison, 

141. 

his visitors, 143. 

his release, 145. 

leaves for France, 146. 

settles in Sedan as Professor 

in the University, 146. 
his letters from Sedan, 146- 

148, 150. 
receives tidings cf James 

Melville's death, 149. 
the last production of his 

pen, 150. 

his death, 151. 

his character, 151. 

James, affection of, for 

his uncle, 16, 24. 51, 132, 141, 

143- 

a great literary impressionist, 

18. 

has a warrant issued fcr his 

apprehension, 52. 
escapes by open boat to 

Berwick, 52, 



Melville, James, his labours at 

Berwick, 57. 
his attack on Archbishop 

Adamson, 59. 
has a private interview with 

the King, 77. 

as a courtier, 78. 

with the expedition against 

Huntly, 81. 
at Hampton Court (chap. 

ix.), 116-133. 
is ordered into ward at New- 
castle, 132. 

his death, 149, 

his character, 149, 

his Autobiography and Diary 

quoted, 24, 25, 37, 41, 47, 48, 

49 » 55' 6o > 79. 8o » 8 3. 9°» I0 7i 
109, 120, 122, 129 et passim. 
Morton, Regent, 31, 33, 36, 37, 
38, 43. 

Nicolson, Bishop of Dunkeld, 
136. 

Paris, University of, 18. 
Perth, the Five Articles of, 151, 
Poitiers, 18. 

Pont, Robert, minister in Edin- 
burgh, 51, 144- 

Presbyterian Church the only voice 
of the nation, 94. 

Presbyterianism, what Scotland 
owes to, 10, 

Puritans of London and the Scot- 
tish ministers, 116, 125, 132. 

Raid of Ruthven, 48. 
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 143. 
Reformation, Assembly scheme of, 
86. 

1 Riot of December 17th ' [1596, in 

Edinburgh]. 97, 
Ruthven lords, 55, 57, 



156 FAMOU 

Salisbury, Earl of, Premier of 

England, 121, 128, 131. 
Scott, William, minister of Cupar, 

122, I32. 

Seaton, the Chancellor of Scot- 
land, 146. 

Second Book of Discipline, 35, 
40. 

Sedan, 145. 

Sempill, Sir James, of Beltrees, 
140. 

Spanish Blanks, 73. 
Spotswood, Archbishop, 117, 142. 
St. Andrews, University of, 17, 
27. 



3 SCOTS 

Stewart, Esme, Duke of Lennox, 

43. 48. 

Stewart, James, Earl of Arran, 

44, 47, 48, 50, 54, 55. 
Strathbogie Castle, ' dinging 

doun ' of, 82, 

True Law of Free Monarchy, 
108. 

Tulchan Scheme (chap, iv.), 31- 
42. 

Wallace, Robert, minister of 

Tranent, 125. 
Wishart, George, 15. 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE 
" FAMOUS SCOTS" SERIES, 



Of THOMAS CARLYLE, by H. C. Macpherson, 

The Literary World says : — 
"One of the very best little bocks en Carlyle yet written, far out-weighing in 
value some more pretentious works with which we are familiar." 

Of ALLAN RAMSAY, by Oliphant Smeaton, 

The Scotsman says : — 
11 It is not a patchwork picture, but one in which the writer, taking genuine 
interest in bis_ subject, and bestowing conscientious pains cn his task, has bis 
materials well in hand, and has used them to produce a portrait that is both life- 
like and well balanced." 

Of HUGH MILLER, by W. Keith Lease, 

The Expository Times says : — 
i( It is a right good book and a right true biography. . . . There is a very fine 
sense of Hugh Miller's greatness as a man and a Scotsman ; there is also a fine 
choice of language in making it curs." 

Of JOHN KNOX, by A. Taylor Innes, 

Mr Hay Fleming in the Bookman says : — 
"A masterly delineation of those stirring times in Scotland, and of that famous 
Scot who helped so much to shape them. 11 

Of ROBERT BURNS, by Gabriel Setoun. 

The New Age says : — 
" It is the best thing on Bums we have yet had. almost as good as Cailyle's 
Essay and the pamphlet published by Dr Nichol of Glasgow." 

Of THE BALLADISTS, by John Geddie, 
The Spectator says : — 

"The author has certainly made a contribution of remarkable value to the 
literary history of Scotland, We do not know of a book in which the subject has 
been treated with deeper sympathy cr out of a fuller knowledge." 

Of RICHARD CAMERON, by Professor Herkless, 

The Dundee Courier says : — 
; 'In selecting Professor Herkless to prepare this addition to the ' Famous Scots 
Series 1 of books, the publishers have made an excellent choice. The vigorous, 
manly style adopted is exactly suited to the subject, and Richard Cameron is 
presented to the reader in a manner as interesting as it_ is impressive. . . . 
Professor Herkless has done remarkably well, and the portrait he has so cleverly 
delineated of one of Scotland's most cherished beroes is one that will never fade. 

Of SIR JAMES YOUNG SIMPSON, by Eve Blantyre 
Simpson, 
The Daily Chronicle says : — 
<! It is indeed long since we have read such a charmungly-v.'ritten biography as 
this little Life of the most typical and ( Famous Soot' that his countrymen have 
been proud of since the time'of Sir Walter, . . . There is not a dull, irrelevant, 
or superfluous page in ah Miss Simpson's booklet, and she^has performed the 
biographer's chief duty— that of selection — with consummate skill and judgment." 



Press Opinions on "Famous Scots" Series— continued 



Of THOMAS CHALMERS, by W. Garden Blaikie, 

The Spectator says : — 
" The most notable feature of Professor Blaikie's book— and none could be more 
commendable — is its perfect balance and proportion. In other words, justice is 
done equally to the private and to the public life of Chalmers, if possible greater 
justice than has been done by Mrs Oliphant." 

Of JAMES BOSWELL, by W. Keith Leask, 

The Morning Leader says : — ■ 
" MrW. K. Leask has approached the biographer of Johnson in the only possible 
way by^ which a really interesting book could have been arrived at — by way of the 
open mind. . . . The defence of Boswell in the concluding chapter of his delightful 
study is one of the finest and most convincing passages that have recently appeared 
in the field of British biography." 

Of TOBIAS SMOLLETT, by Oliphant Smeaton, 

The Weekly Scotsman says : — 
" The book is written in a crisp and lively style. . . . The picture of the great 
novelist is complete and lifelike. Not only does Mr Smeaton give a scholarly 
sketch and estimate of Smollett's literary career, he constantly keeps the reader in 
conscious touch and sympathy with his personality, and produces a portrait of the 
man as a man which is not likely to be readily forgotten." 

Of FLETCHER OF SALTOUN, by W. G. T. Omond, 

The Leeds Mercury says : — 
" Unmistakably the most interesting and complete story of the life of Fletcher of 
Saltoun that has yet appeared. Mr Omond has had many facilities placed at his 
disposal, and of these he has made excellent use." 

Of THE BLACKWOOD GROUP, by Sir George Douglas, 

The Weekly Citizen says : — 
" It need not be said that to everyone interested in the literature of the first half 
of the century, and especially to every Scotsman so interested, c The Blackwood 
Group ' is a phrase abounding in promise. And really Sir George Douglas fulfils 
the promise he tacitly makes in his title. He is intimately acquainted not only 
with the books of the different members of the 1 group,' but also with their environ- 
ment, social and otherwise. Besides, he writes with sympathy as well as know- 
ledge." 

Of NORMAN MACLEOD, by John Wellwood, 

The Star says : — 
"A worthy addition to the 1 Famous Scots Series' is that of Norman Macleod, 
the renowned minister of the Barony in Glasgow, and a man as typical of every- 
thing generous and broadminded in the State Church in Scotland as Thomas 
Guthrie was in the Free Churches. The biography is the work of John Wellwood, 
who has approached it with proper appreciation of the robustness of the subject." 

Of SIR WALTER SCOTT, by George Saintsbury, 

The Pall Mall Gazette says : — 
" Mr Saintsbury's miniature is a gem of its kind. ... Mr Saintsbury's critique 
of the Waverley Novels will, I venture to think, despite all that has been written 
upon them, discover fresh beauties for their admirers." 

Of KIRKCALDY OF GRANGE, by Louis A. BarbiL 

The Scotsman says : — 
" Mr Barbe's sketch sticks close to the facts of his life, and these are sought out 
from the best sources and are arranged with much judgment, and on the whole 
with an impartial mind." 



Press Opinions ox "Famous Scots 5 ' Series— continued 



Of ROBERT FERGUSSONj by Dr A. B. Grosart, 

The Westminster Gazette says : — 
"One of the most interesting of the Famous Scots Series is devoted to 'Robert 
Fergusson' the poet, to whom 'the greater Robert/' as he freely acknowledged, 
was under so many obligations. Dr Grosart is perhaps the best living authority 
on all that relates to the bard of 1 The Farmer's Ingle,' and he gives many new 
facts and corrects a number of erroneous statements that have hitherto obtained 
currency respecting him. We have read it with genuine pleasure." 

Of JAMES THOMSON, by William Bayne, 

The Daily News says : — 
"A just appreciation of Thomson as poet and dramatist, and an interesting 
record of the conditions under which he rose to fame, as also of his friendships 
with the great ones of the eighteenth century." 

Of MUX GO PARK, by T. Banks Maclachlan, 

The Leeds Mersury says : — 
M We owe to Mr Maclachlan not only a charming life-story, if at times a pathetic 
one, but a vivid chapter in the romance of Africa. Geography has no more 
wonderful tale than that dealing with the unravelling of the mystery of the 
Niger." 

The Speaker says : — 
i: Mr Maclachlan recounts with incisive vigour the story of Mungo Park's heroic 
wanderings and the services which he rendered to geographical research." 

Of DAVID HUME, by HENRY Calderwood, 

The Speaker says : — 
11 The little book is a virile recruit of the ' Famous Scots Series.' " 
11 This monograph is both picturesque and critical." 

The New Age says : — 
11 To the many students of philosophy in Scotland a special interest will attach 
to Professor Calderwood's sketch of David Hume from'the fact that it is the last 
piece of work done by its lamented author ; and very pleasing it is to note the 
fairness and charity of the judgment passed by the most evangelical of philosophers 
upon the man who used to be denounced as the prophet of infidelity." 

Of WILLIAM DUNBAR, by Oliphant Smeatox, 

The Speaker says : — 
'•'Mr Smeaton looks narrowly into the characteristics of Dunbar's genius, and 
does well to insist on the almost Shakespearian range of his gifts. He contends 
that in elegy, as well as in satire and allegory, Dunbar's place in English litera- 
ture is a~ rr.gs: the great masters of the craft of letters," 

The Gltisg to Herald says : — 
"This is a bright and picturesquely written monograph, presenting in readable 
form the results of the critical research undertaken by Laing, Schipper, and the 
other scholars who during the present century have done so much for the elucida- 
tion of the greatest of our early Scottish poets." 

Of SIR WILLIAM WALLACE, by Professor MURISON, 

The Speaker says : — 
" Mr Murison is to be congratulated on this little book. After much hard and 
discriminative labour he has pieced together by far the best, one might say the 
only rational and coherent, account of Wallace that exists." 

Mr William Wallace in the Academy says : — 
"Professoat Murison has acquitted himself of his task like a patriot." 
11 Capital reading." 

The Daily News says : — 
11 A scholarly and impartial little volume, one of the best yet published in the 
'Famous Scots Series,'' " 



Press Opinions on "Famous Scots" Series — continued 



The Pall Mall Gazette says :— 
" Another of this admirable collection of biographical studies has appeared. 
It is a well written narrative of the few authenticated facts known about the 
popular hero of Scotland, Sir William Wallace, its production having been pre- 
ceded by a diligent- study of such documents as have been rendered procurable 
by text clubs and historical societies in the north. So far the book would be 
acceptable to all. It, however, contains something else. History is dumb about 
many of the years of the hero's life ; but legend and romance have found utter- 
ance in minstrelsy, and with Blind Harry's epic to draw upon, what more could 
perfervid^ Scots wish for? Professor Murison has incorporated such a quantity 
of the minstrel's incredibjs tales in his book that it is scarcely likely to prove 
delectable fare for any bat his compatriots. It is a bright little book which will 
be much relished north of the Tweed and also among those Scottish exiles who 
are supposed to be pining away their lives south of it." 

The New Age says :— 
"Anyhow, here at least, we have his life-story — a most difficult tale to tell — 
recorded with a painstaking research and in a spirit of appreciative candour which 
leave almost nothing to be desired." 

Of ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, by Margaret Moyes 
Black, 

The Banffshire Journal says : — 
" The portrait drawn as it is by a loving hand, is absolutely photographic in its 
likeness, and the literary criticisms with which the book is pleasantly studded are 
alike careful and judicious, and with most of them the ordinary reader will cordially 
agree." 

The Bookman says : — 
"This little book is sure to get a welcome." 

The Speaker says : — 
"Sense and sensibility are in these pages, as well as knowledge and delicate 
discrimination." 

The Outlook says :— 

" Certainly one of the most charming biographies we have ever come across. 
The writer has style, sympathy, distinction^ and understanding. We were loth to 
put the book aside. Its one fault is that it is too short." 
The Daily Free Press says : — 

"One of the most charming sketches — it is scarcely a biography— of a literary 
man that could be found has just been published as the latest number of the 
' Famous Scots Series' — 1 R. Louis Stevenson,' by Miss Black. The excellence of 
the little book lies in its artless charm, in its loose and easy style, in its author's 
evident love and delight in her subject." 

Of THOMAS REID, by Professor Campbell Fraser, 

The North British Daily Mail says : — 

"A model of sympathetic appreciation and of succinct and lucid exposition." 
The Scotsman says : — 

" Professor Campbell Fraser' s volume on Thomas Reid is one of the most able 
and valuable of an able and valuable series. He supplies what must be allowed to 
be a distinct want in our literature, in the shape of a brief, popular, and accessible 
biography of the founder of the so-called Scottish School of Philosophy, written 
with notable perspicuity and sympathy by one who has made a special study of 
the problems that engaged the mind of Reid." 
The Glasgow Herald says : — 

11 We do not know any volume of the * Famous Scots Series' that deserves or is 
likely to receive a heartier welcome from the educated public than this life and 
estimate of Reid by Professor Campbell Fraser. The writer is no amateur but a 
past-master in the subject of the Scottish philosophy, and it has evidently been a 
real pleasure to him to expiscate quite a number of new facts regarding the pro- 
fessional and private life of its best representative." 



